


A Little Bit Of Context

by rowanthestrange_yugihell



Series: Pre-13 Fic: Post-Reveal, Pre-Series [6]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Ace-Spec Doctor, Fan Characterisation, Gen, Neurodivergent Doctor, Non-Linear Series Order, Nonbinary Doctor, OCD, Post-Reveal Pre-Series, Pre-13 Fic, Spaceinktober, Trans First Doctor, Writober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-07 21:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 72,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12240939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowanthestrange_yugihell/pseuds/rowanthestrange_yugihell
Summary: A collection of oneshots for Thirteen.Based ondropthedrawing's #Spaceinktoberprompts.(can be read as standalone or as part of a series)





	1. The Dreamer   (G, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we explore the moment between sleeping and waking, when all the pieces haven't fallen into place yet.

* * *

  


The Doctor is used to waking up in the night. 

Well, mid-sleep cycle. Night is a concept involving the rotation of planets or other factors which can cause light to fade, and in which a period of general unconsciousness is- Alright, night is fine. 

Roll over, kick a leg out of bed for temperature optimisation, and - if the stars are in alignment - the TARDIS will sing; or else get up and drink strong syrupy coffee enough to make thoughts whiz and hearts hum because sleep is for other people. Simple. 

But it's those times where brain and body and imagination and memory haven't quite synced up that are tricky.

Sometimes there's a problem with the ship, or a friend, or an emergency SOS, that results in pulling on something half-presentable with clumsy hands, and shouting a long-gone companion's name while an alarm blares through the corridors. Sometimes it's a bladder call - clumsily staggering to the bathroom in the dark, and forgetting that sitting down is now mandatory rather than optional. And sometimes it's waking up from a dream, not knowing when, or where, or who the person sitting in the bed is.

It's the change in operating system that's done it. Gasping awake and feeling this body under sleep-warm hands, the ten year old boy inside panicking - _'What's happened to me?! I'm not supposed to turn into this! They were going to give me medicine! **What did you do?!** '_

The first time it's so strong, that urge to burn and drown all at once so powerful, it feels like there's regeneration energy building and exploding to answer the wish. When it breaks like a wave, it turns out it isn't that at all, but a gut-deep howl of misery and sobbing. A far more foreign feeling than bursting heat and shredding nerves.

On this night - like many - it takes a few minutes to mentally readjust, to come back, to come back to _herself_. Form and feeling become congruent once again. The Doctor releases her grip where she was holding herself in, and runs her fingers along the little waxing-and-waning-moon dents in her arms. 

_"We all change, when you think about it, we're all different people; all through our lives, and that's okay, that's good, you've gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be."_

She remembers saying that. Searing it deep inside. She stands by it, and she remembers, oh she remembers. The pluck of a string, arms tight around friends, cold rain and hot tears, the ground hurtling under feet stood still too long, smoke burned eyes, screams and cheers and violin concertos, exploding cans to accompanying spoons, the taste of chocolate cake and humble pie, a crack of distorting time or leather on willow, mouth full of sugar and too many teeth, soft velvet and army issue roughness, a recorder with an empty echo, and the feeling of falling and fainting and flying all at once. 

But sometimes she wishes she could explain to all the people she used to be, how she is _now_. Memory only goes one way and she can't reach the child on Gallifrey and tell him, 'You were a boy and you were fine, then you were a man and you were fine, and sometimes you weren't anything and that was also fine, and now you're a woman, and that's fine too.'

The Doctor lies back down under the warm duvet, stretching her limbs and poking a foot out, before she rolls over.

And sometimes she's also a nothing, or everything, or a mix, or alternating, but that might get confusing and ruins the flow of her little mental speech, so she leaves that bit out.

  



	2. The Alien Empress  (T-M, Other)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor does not get a companion, but does almost get a concussion.

* * *

  


The Doctor's fingers start tingling and her heart rates pick up. 

Adventure over and day saved without casualties - check. TARDIS at her back looking impressive - check. Face clean of Quofan nasal fluids - she runs a slightly clammy hand over herself - check. That was probably a once-only thing, but no harm in putting it on the list.

Alright, this is it. Show time.

"So, this is your stop. Back to your subjects, palace intrigue and paperwork... Unless of course, you'd like to come with me?" 

Tuck one foot behind the other, tilt head like so, crook smile a little bit to the right to look cool rather than desperate, and _lean_ -

**'Door isn't closed.'**

In a toss up between sending her a warning, and reflexively stopping her falling over, her brain decides that good communication is of paramount importance for building a healthy relationship.

Her head hits the TARDIS floor with a crack and everything flashes white.

The Doctor sits up with a groan, and Vhegadi cups a blue webbed hand around her shoulder, to keep her from standing.

"Are you alright, little Doctor?" Xe asks.

" 'M not 'little' I'm three thousand and fifty seven probably, and average height, you're just tall, should be five foot like ev'ryone else." She slurs slightly, lifting her hand to the back of her head and finding xyrs there already, arm cillia tickling the nape of her neck in a way she should probably confess is quite compromising for a Time Lord. 

"Well, five-footed people aside," Vhegadi says kindly, "You were unconscious for a moment, so if I may-"

"No I wasn't, I was just resting my eyes."

"-If I may call a medic." Xe says more firmly.

"I'm the Doctor, I'm _the_ medic. That would just be embarrassing for everyone involved." Sort of true. She should get a real medical doctorate one day - the forgery in the library desk isn't going to help much in an actual emergency.

"So I should let my companion risk brain damage because xe is too prideful to let one of my excellent medics see xyr in a weakened state." 

"That would be my advice, yes."

Vhegadi sighs.

"Let _me_ check you at least. Where are you now?"

"Top half in the TARDIS, beyond conventional space-time in a pocket dimension that appears to be running alongside the universe it appears in but is in fact entirely separate. My legs are in the Imdali Nebula System, on the second planet - Valinor, in territory...don't know, do you have territories? In the Grand Valincia, on the third floor, in your bedroom. Uh, poolroom."

" _Fifth_ floor." Xe corrects, giving her a pointed look, but xyr black eyes glimmer with mirth.

"I always underestimate floor numbers." 

"How many fronds am I holding up?" Vhegadi asks, removing xyr arm from her neck and forcing the Doctor to pretend the noise she makes is a suppressed sneeze.

"Thirty five? Forty two? Forty nine? That's not a fair question." 

"Who's the ruler of this land?"

"You are."

"And don't you forget it." Xe winks, and at last helps her to her feet.

  


* * *

  


Unluckily for the Doctor, the Empress is relieved to be back with xyr subjects; is greatly looking forward to causing a bit more palace intrigue; and has no idea what paperwork is, but if it's similar to the minutiae of ruling, xe is fairly indifferent to it, and is part way through creating a program that should allow xyr to process it more effectively, and would rather like to get it finished before the next moon cycle.

They eat a meal of something similar to strawberries-and-cream and dates-and-honey, both dishes a pleasing shade of violet. The Doctor rolls up her trousers and swishes her legs in the pool, as the Empress floats along the bottom, glowing with a pulse of pink light that every second or so illuminates the tip of xyr fins from xyr head to xyr feet, occasionally increasing in frequency as xe comes up for a morsel of food, or to play with the Doctor’s toes.

"I must look quite horrible to you." Vhegadi whispers, stroking the hair on her shin. 

"Do I look horrible to _you_?"

"No, you look immensely intriguing."

"Well then."

The Doctor's distractedly licking honey from between her fingers as a pair of webbed hands curl around her knees, their three claws pressing lightly into her skin. The pulses of pink light are rapid and suffuse the room with a rosy glow.

" _Immensely_." Xe repeats. "I do not wish to be away from my people, and to see a creature like you beached on my shore would be far worse than the pain of never seeing you again, but perhaps you could stay for one rotation..."

A long thin tail that the Doctor is positive wasn't there earlier winds out of the water, curling like a vine around her arm and weaving between her sticky fingers. With her free hand, the Doctor strokes the fringes of the feather-like end carefully, and Vhegadi shudders. 

"May I confer?" The Doctor gabbles, disentangling herself, and inclining her head towards the TARDIS. 

"With your ship?" Vhegadi asks, a hint of amusement in xyr voice.

"I'll be quick." She says, and skids the last metre to the TARDIS, her wet feet leaving a trail behind her.

  


* * *

  


The Doctor taps her pencil on her knee.

Right, definitely would be happy to make Vhegadi do the shuddery thing again. She scribbles that in the Pro List.

But is doing this without a drive for reciprocation unfair? Possibly? That should go in Cons. But it's not like she'd really mind either. She rubs hard with the eraser on the already fluffy piece of paper.

Not knowing how the process works for Valins should be a con - but it's not like Vhegadi knows any better. It could be fun. Or there might be surprise poison barbs and it could be terrible.

The Doctor bites hard on the pencil, sparing her fingers.

Why can't these kind of feelings just be an overwhelming desire to play Mario Kart instead?

"What do you think?" She asks the TARDIS.

She replies with a _bong_ that somehow translates to: 'Not my circus, not my monkey'.

The Doctor looks down at her notes to read what she's got so far.

It's completely illegible.

She throws the notepad away, makes her mind up on the spot, gets to her feet and strides out of the TARDIS.

It's dark. The navy sky is visible out of the window, an orange moon hanging heavily in it, illuminating her boots and the remains of their meal. The puddles are gone, the polished black stone is dry under her feet. And the pool water lies still, but gently pulses pink every few seconds from the Valin asleep in its depths.

  
  



	3. The Engineer Girl  (T, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor fixes a ship, breaks a ship, and is a little bit taken with a ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story-Specific warnings: Misogynistic Language
> 
> Takes place after [It's So Much More Friendly With Two](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12151005), though can be read as a standalone.

  


* * *

  


The coffee is always good in the Tethannis IV Docking Station.

Maybe it's because of their unique non-dairy whipped cream topper - cows being somewhat hard to come by on a glorified asteroid.

Maybe it's because of the Lightning Shot™ they add to each one. _(The Lightning Shot™ - The answer to: 'Can you bottle lightning and distill it into some kind of semi-legal drug?' and the question: 'Yeah, but should you?')_

Maybe it's because of the aroma of the coffee, various artificial flavourings, and what is apparently called 'pumpkin spice', gelling incredibly well with the scent of engine sludge, fried coolant systems and shredded landing gear. And mostly covering up the smell of week-old unwashed mostly-human space-truckers.

An unshaven man in a sweat-stained shirt attempts to engage his ship. It sounds like an assistance droid trying to gargle with gravel. Everyone in the vicinity covers up their aural orifices, and the Doctor loudly slurps her coffee.

"Your fuel driver's uncoupled from your injector!" She shouts from her perch - a little jetty overlooking the floor.

"Did I ask, bitch?!" The man yells back, opening the side-cavity again.

"Your engine did, you might've missed it in all that screaming!" The Doctor plucks a marshmallow from her coffee, scalding her fingers ("You sure you want-" "When I say 'the works', I mean it. Do you have a Flake?"). The fact that she can't tell whether this is banter, or an exchange that ends with her being punched in the face, says something about why her 'companion' situation isn't going so well.

By now, a little crowd has amassed, all sharing their ideas. Which are wrong. Because it's the fuel driver.

"Res-onate the driver!" It's very much like the attempts to watch daytime TV at the university - back then he would just chuck it out the window and make Nardole deal with it, now she'd have to get up and walk away. And she never walks away. Even if this really isn't what that principle's for. 

"Yeah, I'm gonna trust some blonde bint with her fucking pumpkin spice latte!" Most of the crowd joins him in laughing.

See now, this - she wants to tell her old self - is what a 'face that nobody listens to' looks like.

But she is two things above all others. Stubborn, and right.

The Doctor puts down her half-drunk coffee - "Stay there, don't wander off." - pulls out her screwdriver, and takes a few paces of run-up before jumping onto the nose of the ship.

The man starts yelling as she sonics open the top hatch, but it's quickly drowned out by wolf whistles as she leans down, having to contort her arm to reach the fuel driver. It's surprisingly uncomfortable.

"I'd say don't half-ass it, but not with cheeks like that you won't!"

With a steady hand she tweaks the wonky injector joiner and it clicks. The Doctor has to fight the nonsensical urge to do it a few more times, settling for tapping her finger on it instead. Then she resonates the driver until it falls back into place. Ok, she's proved her point...and for what exactly?

"You not talking to me any more princess? Or have you figured out that maybe the men know what they're talking about a _little_ more than you do?" The crowd 'oo's and laughs.

Oh, bad move.

"Y'all must be some kind o' dumb if you're mouthin' off ‘t the girl balls deep in your engine!"

The laughter dies, and even the Doctor stops moving. In her mind she starts running through the crowd - who didn't laugh? Her memory provides her with a fleeting glimpse of a gangly young man peering into the open side-cavity. For some reason she wants him to have a dog and a van and an addiction to dog treats.

"What did you just call me, boy?" The man says quietly. She can hear the shuffle of feet, people moving out of the way. So it _was_ a 'punch in the face' rather than banter situation, good to know.

"Ah said," The young man's accent gets even thicker - something American? She should know this - and there's a quaver in it now as he says slowly, "You must be some kind o' dumb-"

There's a sudden shout, a whoop, and the sound of running. She knows what a fox hunt sounds like.

With a buzz from her sonic, she floods the engine, and pushes herself up and out.

Leaping from the ship, she runs to the cubby-hole her TARDIS is parked in. Short hops always tricky, but there's a good reason, and the TARDIS will help. The Doctor presses a few buttons, pulls a lever, and the time rotor barely lifts before falling still again with a _dong_.

Given the layout of this place, average running speed of a mob, she'll want to open the doors right about... Now.

A flailing young man barrels past her, straight into the console and knocks the wind out of himself. The Doctor slams the doors shut, and there's a series of satisfying bangs as the crowd crashes into them.

"Don't worry, the hoards of Genghis Khan couldn't get through those doors, and believe me, they've tried." She says. Has she used that before?

The young man is still gasping for air and holding his ribs as if they might escape if he lets go. His wide eyes peer around, and she gets a flutter of pride.

"This is the TARDIS, my ship. Sentient. Travels in space, time and whatever else she cares to."

"Time?" He says quizzically.

"Temporal travel, forward and backwards." The Doctor says with a nod.

"Senchunt?"

"Alive." She clarifies. The young man, breathing a little easier, staggers to his feet and gives her a disbelieving smile.

"You're talkin' with your tongue outta your shoe ain'tcha?" Now it's her turn to look confused. "You're a liar." He translates.

"Definitely, but not right now."

She lets him take it all in for a second, walking around the console, politely keeping his hands to himself.

"Din't I run into a janitors' closet?"

"That's good trans-dimensional engineering for you." 

He laughs. "And there's Dick bein' his namesake while a transthingy engineer fixes his ship."

"Fixed for three and a half seconds anyway. I drowned his engine." The Doctor says, mentally looking at the empty space where her guilt is supposed to be.

"Whoo! Nice one. Don't blame ya, lady." He hoots, looking intently at the time rotor.

"Not 'lady'." The Doctor says quickly, not really knowing why.

"Oh." He says, and his eyes briefly to her, before returning to the control panels. "Sorry 'bout that. What am I callin' you?"

"Doctor. Just the Doctor."

Yes ma'am- sir- _Doctor_ , you keep kicking me if I mess up your hoozierwotsits, I'll get 'em. My name's Buck. Buck Duckett. So if anyone gives you an ear over your name, just remember the guy named after his Pop's Goonball team, and whose names rhyme with- well, you get it."

Buck crouches down to see if there's anything underneath the console, and on a whim the Doctor motions for him to follow her. She leads him down a corridor to a more organic area. Tendrils wind around old coral, advanced machines, and an ice cream maker, and go through a forcefield-protected archway, beyond which something between a star and a black hole swirls.

" _My_ fuel driver never becomes uncoupled."

The next twenty minutes become a question and answer session about TARDIS mechanics. He asks all the right ones, and a good handful of wrong ones. The Doctor can't quite remember how to proceed to the next step, so just keeps info dumping on him until he runs out of things to ask.

"So, uh, do you like it? Here?" She asks.

"Me? I'm as happy as a dead-" Buck seems to finally notice the thing sniffing around his left leg, "A, uh, a pig in the sunshine..." 

The pig oinks at him.

"You din't tell me you had a pet." Buck leans down and scratches the pig's ears perfectly and it's so thrilled it tries to roll on his feet. "My Grandpappy used t' keep pigs. Whatchu feedin' her? She's gonna grow even bigger than this you know."

The pig's already about the size of a coffee table, and has long since become impossible to carry without making gravitational alterations.

"Dip is taken care of the same way I am - by the TARDIS. She checks your levels and doles out whatever's appropriate. Usually I get better than pellet food but I can't say that's never happened. There are forests and fields the TARDIS makes up for Toast to forage in, and she's become a dab hand at gardening."

A hatch opens and a large, plump looking lettuce rolls out to Buck's feet. He picks it up and studies it, then tears a bit off, sniffs, and eats it. He nods and makes an impressed noise, before handing the rest to the pig, who starts throwing and nosing it around the room boisterously.

"What do you think?"

"I think your pig oughtta play for The Colony-22 Bucks."

They watch as the veggie goonball is devoured.

"Was it Dip or Toast?" Buck asks.

"I'm trying to find a name that Eggs likes. I'm on food now."

"So that makes you...Chips, Beans or, uh, Bacon. Maybe not that one." 

The Doctor walks Buck back to the console room. That's the best place for all of this. He's pig-approved, asks good questions, has an interesting skill-set, heroic instincts...

"How do you feel about travelling space and time with me?" The Doctor gabbles. Buck looks at her sideways. "As a friend." She adds.

"Aw shoot, I got a ship out there, a delivery I'm already late fur, and a hound-dog waitin' for me back home. Fine offer though."

The Doctor tries to hold back from beating her head against the time rotor, and settles for spinning some ornamental wheel the TARDIS has provided her with.

"I could buy you a coffee? As a friend. I lost you yours earlier."

That seems fair. They exit the Janitor's closet and edge back into the main hall.

"Hey Doc, if those guys come back again..."

"Give you a call?"

"Uh, I was gonna say can you gimme a heads up, I'm as tired as my metaphurs." The Doctor laughs, so does he. "My Ma taught me that one."

Oh well, what's life without a few stories of the ones that got away.

The crusty coffee van is still there, queue dispersed as people set to sleeping or working through the Galactic Lull.

"I'll have your basic bean juice, and they'll have..." Buck turns to her. 

Before she opens her mouth, the girl behind the counter says, "The Monstrosity?" It's always nice to be recognised. The Doctor nods.

Carrying their coffees, they make their way back to the floor, steering well clear of the sounds of yelling and flung tools over to the right. The little ship they head towards is a 217X VASA Weldun, old and pitted, but spotlessly clean. Across the hull its name has been painstakingly written, declaring it the USS Going Nowhere. It's basically a camper van, and with a feeling of deepest treachery towards the TARDIS, it pulls at the fifty-year old stargazer in her. It smells of metal, space dust and adventure. The Doctor runs a hand along it and decides that yes, she probably wouldn't be able to leave it either.

"She's not senchunt maybe, but she's mine." Buck says proudly, as she gazes at it.

"What are you getting?" The Doctor asks, sitting on a crate and plucking a marshmallow from her coffee, scalding her fingers. "At least tell me it's triple digits." Buck grins.

"Well I don't mean to brag or nothin'..."

  
  



	4. The Rovers  (T, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a drunk cellist, even drunker football fans, and a sober but petty Doctor.

* * *

  


There’s this idiotic idea that if you’re going to break in somewhere, you wait until the dead of night. Night can be good - cover of darkness, particularly if you’re wearing a black cowl because you want to do the thing properly, but quiet? No. Silence is your enemy.

 _Irene goodnight, Irene goodnight_  
_Goodnight Irene, goodnight Irene_  
_I'll see you in my dreams_

A drunken gaggle of students are trying to make it through an obstacle course of trees and benches while attempting ‘Goodnight Irene’. Someone’s singing ’Taylor is a wanker’ in a terrible attempt at a melody. 

_Sometimes I live in the country_  
_Sometimes I live in town_  
_Sometimes I have a great notion_  
_To jump into the river and drown_

Been a while since she heard the long form.

The Doctor hides in the shadows of her old building and watches them try to strangle the rogue harmonist with his own scarf. After a final refrain of “ _He used to play for Rovers, now he plays for trash!_ ” The lad gives up and staggers along with them, making sounds that are neither musical or indeed words.

 _Irene goodnight, Irene goodnight_  
_Goodnight Irene, goodnight Irene_  
_I'll see you in my dreams_

Turning to the door, she gives it a quick buzz with the sonic and she’s in, and follows her old path without any thought. She could walk this place blind - _has_ walked it blind. 

The Doctor jumps at her reflection in the trophy case. It might be the regeneration throwing her off. It might be the lack of Bill. She was only there for such a small part of everything but… There’s always that ‘but’ with the people she travels with. Probably less than a quarter of her life has been spent in their company, quite a lot less, but they shine so brightly it makes the bits of lonely darkness disappear in her mind. It will happen again. She won’t feel like this forever.

In an attempt to rid herself of the Brain-Bill at the edge of her vision, she closes her eyes entirely, brain mapping out the corridors and staircases for her. But now she doesn’t just see her, but feels her, smells her, hears her. For a moment she considers talking to her - Bill used to do it with her mother - but it feels forced, she can’t make her funny enough, and stops as the silence stares oppressively at her.

There’s nearly an accident and the Doctor’s forced to open her eyes when she turns into the corridor before her office and walks into a suit off armour. That’s new. And tacky. Obviously her replacement has no taste.

_’Is this what you’re going to be like when it’s her turn to go? Which bit? Tag yourself - are you the tacky suit of armour or the whinging ex-professor who can’t let go?’_

Quiet, Brain-Bill.

The office is empty. Lights off, curtains open, window cracked, napping chair unslept in. There are no interesting knick-knacks, just photos of family members on skiing holidays or hiking up mountains. No beautiful blue TARDIS in the corner, of course, acting as art installation, cupboard, or unique Bristol Rovers memorabilia. The desk is clear but for some neatly ordered chargers, a few essays, and a name plate - Dr. I.Aurelius. Show off. Anyone can name themselves after a surprisingly attractive Roman philosopher. She could call herself Plato, doesn’t make her any good at shadow puppets.

There are no hidden sweet treats in their desk, but the stash of crisps under the third left floorboard is still there. She picks out a prawn cocktail (what actually is a prawn cocktail? Are they alive and swimming around in it? Probably not made by prawns, for prawns, with prawns), kicks her feet up and takes one of the essays.

“Why Fusion Is Impossible On The Earth While Fission Is”

A red 41% is circled in the corner. The student has apparently taken umbrage with the concept of ‘impossible’. Good.

The notes of cello strings float through the window on the night air. Is that Cathy? Why wouldn’t it be? She’ll be finishing off her course with a different lecturer and a classmate down, but she’s still here. They all are.

The Doctor looks again at the essay. Ankita Avanti. On track for a first. This better be a one off, even if she admires the spirit of it.

The paper slides from her hand and she taps her free fingers on the desk along with the music. There’s no guitar to play along anymore, and she’s not certain she remembers how. On the table her fingers run up and down in some precise rhythm only they understand. Not guitar, but possibly a piano? An accordion? But there’s neither in the room, and the cello continues alone.

No-one plays like Cathy. Stage name - not that she’d ever get on one - The Drunk Cellist. Two a.m. and a match on? That’s worth four ciders and half a joint at the least, and her hands are still steady. That girl could have become a surgeon, or a maestro, and instead she’s going to be a philosopher. It’s beautiful. She loves her.

It shouldn’t be right to feel at home here, but she does. Listening to the strings and the swell of plastered football fans starting to sing along to them. She genuinely misses this. Saving the universe, rocking a guitar, playing football, lecturing, it’s all just going mad in front of a crowd. 

They make her hearts burn. The ones who know that the answer to the question of what’s out there, is that it’s _everything_ , and the weight of it presses on their chests. The ones who she’d catch looking at the sky like their hearts are unfolding because something calls to them in a sound they can’t hear. The ones with pasts they don’t remember, and presents that terrify them, and futures that they don’t believe in. The ones who listen to her lectures looking lost, not because they don’t understand, but because they understand far too much.

She can’t stay. This isn’t stepping back in time, it’s drowning in it.

With a bang that rattles the silence, The Doctor knocks her heels more firmly on the desk, leaving dust marks and imprints on the leather, and swings them off. She takes ten minutes to re-mark the stack of essays, which all turn out to have disagreed with the professor’s terms, from low 30’s and 40’s to 61%, 74%, 68% and 85% respectively. Then finally she pulls open a drawer, grabs a letter opener in the shape of a sword - what is it with this person and faux Medieval tat? If you’re naming yourself after Marcus Aelius Aurelius Verus Caesar at least go Roman - and scores ‘The Doctor was here’ on the side of the desk.

She collects the identity beacon that’s been broadcasting in the hidden safe behind the bookcase, which hopefully will reduce the number of aliens seeking this place out in the hopes of finding her; but she leaves the stash of crisps. After all, just because she can’t stay, doesn’t mean she can’t come back every now and again.

As she’s leaving, she feels Bill’s hand tugging her back and hears her whisper in her ear. 

_’We should totally just stab Caesar!’_

The Doctor grabs the letter opener and thrusts it into the wooden name plate. Goodnight I.Aurelius.

Happy? 

Brain-Bill is. So is she.

And she nicks all their pens for good measure.

  



	5. The Old Scientist  (G-T, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a familiar face. Metaphorically at least.

* * *

  


It all starts with a clench in her insides.

This isn’t too abnormal, and at first she just thinks she’s lost track of things. Known for being one of the more incapable regenerators, her body isn’t as finally tuned as other Time Lords’ might be. Given the template of her original body plus her knowledge of many of her human travelling companions, it has configured itself to regularly go through a certain extraneous process, despite her complete incapability of passing on genetics in the fashion it suggests.

But there’s no pain in her thighs, or back, nor even a migraine, and so then she wonders if the Steel Stomach Of Rassilon might have finally failed. That stew did look rather purple. And boney.

After she gets to re-examine the colour of the stew - mauve, danger, shouldn’t have risked it - the Heerian she’s staying with hauls her in front of the Team Leader, who declares her to be ‘Sand Sick’. They reassure her that this happens to every creature that passes through these parts, and that they have a scientist on the outskirts who inoculates their young and cures both them and their travellers.

“I’m a Time Lord.” The Doctor says somewhat pointlessly. She clearly doesn’t look like the three-fingered orange fox-gorilla creatures that the Heerians are.

“They. Too. Will. Cure.” The Team Leader says kindly and firmly in their staccato grammar.

With that The Doctor finds herself loaded up on some kind of wagon, alongside a bushel of local flora. She tries to insist on walking, but they point at their collection of plants, and she nearly collapses when she vomits again. Four young members of the village Team fit themselves into the contraption at the back that looks like a rugby scrum sled, and proceed to push her and their wares, at a fair pace, to a futuristic looking building glinting in the distance.

  


* * *

  


When they get there, two of them jump up to grab the bushel, another runs to the door, and the fourth helps her off the cart, patting her on the back when she has to sit down again.

The Doctor watches as the young Heerian bangs on the door and sings something that she can’t quite hear. They pull a face at a very high-tech scanner, pulling their lower eyelid down with one finger and sticking their tongue out. Funny the things that end up being universal. It bleeps and the door slides open, flashing a reflection of the setting sun directly into her eyes and making her curl up so she won’t be sick again.

Her friend with the back rubs is gone, and is running around excitedly with their friends, telling the scientist that they’ve ‘got another one’ and explaining the uses of their plants, before being distracted by some new toy.

“Test it out. If it breaks or gives you psychotropic hallucinations, bring it back. I’ll expect you in two hours with your results, now get out of my facility.” The scientist’s voice flows a lot more than the Heelians she’s used to and sounds older. They have just a hint of an accent that she identifies as Scottish. _’Perth.’_ Her old self says in her mind, and she doesn’t argue.

The children whoop and run off with their beeping object, leaving her, the plants and the cart behind.

“Stop lying there moaning and come inside.” The scientist barks at her, and the Doctor pushes herself up, trying to focus on keeping everything else down while the ground transitions from sand and dust to spotless polymer under her shuffling feet.

As soon as she’s inside the building, she feels the whirring and spinning and alternate dimensionalityness, and as she opens her mouth in shock, something is sprayed into it, making her choke and splutter. A hand grabs her chin and pulls her jaw open, spraying her twice more while she writhes like a cat, backing into a cabinet and causing something to fall and smash on the ground, soaking her boots.

“Why do you always do this?” They say despairingly, and with a click of their fingers a little roomba-like droid comes to clean up the mess of test-tubes.

“Ra-ni?” She coughs.

“Doctor.” The Rani says with a sigh, and goes back to some kind of filtration system on a workbench.

“You’ve regenerated!” That’s almost a bigger shock than finding them here at all. They look completely different, rather more androgynous now, with functionally short grey hair and piercing eyes behind highly technological screen-glasses, but she recognises them instinctively, as only another Time Lord does.

“It was inevitable.” They say, watching their centrifuge spin up and rubbing their temples.

There are so many questions, but she lets herself ask the obvious first.

“What number are you on?”

“Body three, fifteen thousand eight hundred and sixty three Galactic Standard Years. Why? What’s the damage for you?”

“Three thousand and something probably,” The Doctor says somewhat sheepishly, “And,” She sniffs, “Body fifteen if we’re being technical.”

The Rani pauses and turns to face her. They look her up and down, and she’s pretty sure she’s being scanned by the glasses.

“You do know there is a reason that Rassilon only went up to twelve regenerations, yes? He wasn’t just a number obsessive.”

The Doctor taps her fingers on her leg an entirely arbitrary amount of times. “Yes.”

“Then you know that the only reason you aren’t a misshapen pile of limbs right now is sheer dumb luck. The Master at least has had the - well you can hardly call it sense - but at least has shifted their Body Of Origin. You, I am assuming, have not.”

Their eyes glint, and the Rani advances on her.

“We could test this…”

The Doctor pulls her sonic out of her pocket and starts brandishing it.

“You kill me, dismember me, or are in any way rude to me, and I will explode every experiment in your TARDIS, wipe your memory drives of research, and set fire to your lab coat.”

The Rani keeps looking at her, and the Doctor makes their lapel start to smoulder.

“Oh, it’s not worth the fight.” The Rani says, and walks away, leaving a slight smoke trail that they waft at carelessly. “But don’t come crawling to me when you’ve turned into Crispy. Ask the Master how _that_ felt.”

They lapse into silence, and the Doctor finally risks moving away from the wall to look over their shoulder.

The Doctor knows she’s usually the cleverest person in the galaxy at any given moment, but there’s something about being next to the Rani that makes everything in front of her turn from ‘Higgs field inhibitor’, ‘Triple-titrated bernadine solution’ and ‘Chromium reaction infuser with Alcubierre housing’ to ’Science thing’, ‘Wet science thing’ and ‘Shiny science thing’.

“You’re not being evil are you, because I would _hate_ to blow this up.” She says with a smile, the lie evident in every syllable all the way to the popped ‘p’.

“Speaking of blowing things up, glad to see the war effort did absolutely nothing of value.” The Rani says baldly. The Doctor’s grin falters as she tries to process the swerve in conversation. “I’m amazed you’re still alive. Or would be, if it didn’t fit every model I have about you - I’m just being hyperbolic for the sake of effective communication.”

Every sound in the lab suddenly seems magnified, and the Doctor feels all her energy solidify into a metal ball deep in her stomach. The sudden tremor in her hands immediately stabilises and her breathing turns slow and deep. 

They could choose not to do this. Accept things as they are. Start from scratch. Kids again. But there are holes in her knowledge that a part of her with a heavy coat and scruffy beard wants filled in, combined with an overwhelming urge to pick at the scab.

“You were a…conscientious objector.” The Doctor states.

“And you weren’t. Glad we shed that one piece of common ground, gives me more room to manoeuvre.” The Rani says, without looking up from her work.

“Heard you were imprisoned. For refusing to provide scientific assistance.” She pries.

“Fools. Temporal weapons are potentiality physics, they may as well have ordered me to compose them a battle anthem.”

“Thought they wanted you on War Looms.”

“Yes, because I have such a deep interest in reproduction.” The Rani drawls sarcastically.

“I’d have thought you’d have loved some Time Lords to test on. That was their claim for imprisoning you - that you'd go over to the Daleks for research subjects.”

“I didn’t want _new_ test subjects, I wanted my old ones back. But no, bring back Rassilon, bring back _the Master_ of all the wastes of oxygen, but no, _I_ was asking too much.” The Rani’s voice has a distinct edge now.

Instinctively the Doctor looks out of the window to an empty space in the darkening sky, realising why their facility - their TARDIS - is angled as it is.

“I’m sorry. About Miasimia Goria.”

“You’re sorry? There were over sixty billion Miasimians in a five planet empire before that star system was deemed collateral damage. All that influence on universal science, art, technology- they had just reached light speed travel, they had made contact with a human colony, all of that wiped out and reversed between picoseconds because the Time Lords didn’t want the Daleks to get there first! And you’re sorry?!”

It’s unnerving to hear them so emotive, but then, Miasimia Goria was the Rani’s life’s work - a Magnum Opus of living, breathing people.

“I didn’t know, I would have done something.”

“You _did_ do something, Doctor, you went and fought for them. I expected it from the Master, anything to cling onto that emptiness they call life, but you? What did they do, find your patriotism in a black hole somewhere? Or did they just dangle a human in front of the Daleks and point you in the right direction?”

The Doctor glares at them, but almost immediately finds she’s too tired to keep it up.

“Oh, by Omega that’s what they did. Otherf-”

“It was more complicated than that.” She protests, “I stayed out of it as long as I could but the Daleks didn’t know I wasn’t involved - why would they believe that? They were everywhere! The things they did to the people I-” Her mind is filled with images of Lucie, vivid and sensory and real - it’s like being electrocuted and unable to pull away, and she can’t save her, can’t reach her, can’t stop her.

There’s a stinging in her neck, and she finds herself rubbing it as the world solidifies. Her ears are ringing as if someone had just been shouting.

“At least your Lucie got to contribute something of worth to the universe.” The Rani says, putting whatever they stabbed her with in some kind of sterilisation container.

The Doctor runs her hands through her hair, trying to tuck it behind her ears. They feel heavy, clumsy. She bites on a knuckle for comfort and to test if it hurts. It does. 

“Hands out of your mouth, you’re in a lab. Unfortunately for me.”

The room spins slightly, even though she knows they haven’t taken off.

“D’you know wha’ppened?” The Doctor tries to say, mouth being just as uncooperative as her hands.

“Shut up until the worst of it wears off, you sound like you’ve been on the Zingiber. But yes, I heard of your attempt to blow up Gallifrey - along with your subsequent failure - why else do you think I even let you inside? You aren’t the first visitor I’ve had. Not even the second.”

That’s important, the Doctor thinks sluggishly. Not sure why, but it is.

"I had to reinvent half my laboratory because of their ‘Strategic Temporal Bombing’. A War On Paradoxes fought with paradoxes - and I thought the Master was mad.” The Rani pauses. “But I have rebuilt. Two hundred years of work and they are already a partially established Level 3 planet.”

“Did you give them fire?” The Doctor slurs, mind full of strangely vivid images of Time Lords, and Celestial Intervention Agents, and Rassilon himself, swooping down like eagles to tear out the Rani’s liver with their teeth.

“Fire - yes, but they had managed circular motion, and they even created a rudimentary means of electricity without assistance. The trick is good-natured competition - regular, playful and low-stakes. The Heelians are far more competitive than my Miasimians, but much less aggressive, even taking into account the period before my brain modification error. I believe there’s a social aspect in their use of games and play-battles even with strangers, that makes any true fighting seem perverse to them. It’s going to be interesting to see how this manifests in population management, but I have no intention of interfering with that at this time.” The Rani explains, a hint of enthusiasm creeping into their voice.

The Doctor doesn’t know how to feel about all of this, the Rani playing Sim City with a budding species, but they don’t seem to be causing them harm.

“What are you working on next?” She asks, expelling the last of the sedative in a cough of silver vapor. “Emotional regulation?”

“No, that’s not for them.” The Rani says, stepping back from the dissipating cloud. “Next is the ever-practical opposable thumbs, genetic resistance to Venenatio Arenosum,” They gesture at her with a spraying motion, “And increased puzzle-solving abilities. Then I’ll see where I go from there.”

As if on cue, there’s a knock and beep at the door. With a surprising lack of eye-rolling, the Rani leaves her work and walks over to open it.

“Ushani! Broken. Your. Box.” The little Heelian declares happily. “Sweet-Rangoon. Was. Inside.”

“How did you break it?” The Rani asks, tapping their glasses and gesturing with one hand to type on an invisible data screen.

“West-Field. Twist.” The Heelian says, pointing to their friend, “North-Corner. Pull. High.” They gesture to the other, and mime wrenching something from the ground. “Central-Run. Press.” They point at the smallest, and leap up and land on their hands like a hunting fox.

“And. Compass-Angle. Planned.” Yips the little one, swinging on their knuckles.

“How did you divide the Sweet-Rangoon?”

All of them mime pulling something open with their three fingers, horizontally then vertically.

“Was it evenly distributed?”

“No. Ushani.” Central-Run says, clearly designated spokes-Heelian. “Sweet-Rangoon. Never. Breaks. Equally. Compass-Angle. Receives. Largest.”

“Who decided that, and what was your reasoning?”

“Captain.” They all say, pointing at Central-Run, who continues, “Compass-Angle. Is. Smallest. Needs. Most. Sweetness. For. Home. Push.” They pat their shoulders and gesture towards the cart.

“Thank you for your results. Now, take these,” The Rani hands them a box far bigger than them, but they each immediately take one side. “Distribute them among the Team. You may not tell them how to unlock them, that would be Cheating,” The Heelians nod solemnly, “However, you may chose to tell them there is a Sweet-Rangoon inside - but you must inform me if you do. Break.”

The Heelians scuttle off and load the crate onto the cart.

“And take the Rookie with you!”

The Doctor tries to protest as the Rani takes a glass stirring rod and uses it to guide her out of the door, jabbing her in the left kidney when she moves too slowly.

She stops and turns in the doorway, ignoring the prod to her stomach, trying to work out what she wants to say. The rod is suddenly under her chin, lifting it, so she can’t escape the Rani’s sharp silver eyes boring into hers.

“I am not the Master. I don't want you here."

With that the Doctor is released, and without a chance to respond, the door swooshes shut with a clunk in front of her nose.

She has finally given in to the insistent Heelians, resuming her place on the cart, and trying to steady the puzzle-boxes until they find their rhythm, when the door opens again.

“And if you see the CIA, tell them I'm dead!” The Rani shouts after her.

“Same!” The Doctor yells back, and - though it might just be a trick of the light - likes to believe she gets a microscopic smile along with their nod, before the door closes for the last time.

  



	6. The Bounty Hunters  (G-T, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some people hunt for food, some people hunt for gold, and some people hunt for a commuted sentence.

  


* * *

  


"Do you have to carry me on a stick? I could just walk. Not trying to bring this little kidnapping party down or anything, but my wrists really aren't built to have all this weight on them." The Doctor’s jostled by the scruffy men carrying her like a pig on a spit, and sways alarmingly.

"Oi, shut it. You're gonna get yours. They gonna try ya, dunk ya, and burn ya and serves'oo right."

Dunking? Well that's ok, that's what a respiratory bypass is for. Pretty sure she's not fireproof though. Definitely going to have to escape before that bit.

A grubby hand reaches into her pocket, frisking her, but not noticing the screwdriver.

"It's got food!"

"Ah, witch's food - best not. It'll put the devil in ya." The man thrusts the lumpy sandwiches back into her pocket. "We'll get rewarded with food enough when we bring it to The Woodsmen."

They both chuckle at their plan. While they're in a lighter sort of mood, the Doctor decides to try again.

"Seriously though, this is quite painful. Could we at least tie me up less like a sloth? You don't know what a sloth is... It's a sort of a, uh, tree…towel, like a sentient towel - do you have towels yet?" The Doctor asks pointlessly. She knows how this goes. They're going to put her down, forget about her, and she'll only be saved by the timely intervention of ramblers.

"Thaddeus, shouldn't we do what it says? It might curse us..."

"Is this about the King? Because I _swear_ -"

"It's gonna do it Thad! It's gonna call the magic hut and eat us! Oh, have mercy on me God!"

The Doctor is dropped onto the leaf strewn floor with a yelp, as the man in front dumps her and runs off behind a tree, the one behind following swiftly.

“Ok, ow." She moans, tied hands unable to rub her butt, which is probably broken. The men are running deeper into the forest, screaming about 'retribution'.

If she _were_ a witch - the Doctor thinks, trying to wiggle herself off the end of the stake - then her life would be quite different. She'd have a magic wand for starters, which would be useful in situations like these - she tries to reach the sonic screwdriver with her teeth - and she'd be able to apparate and disapparate to go wherever she likes - a key falls out of her pocket and she realises she can't remember where she parked the TARDIS.

What house would she be in? Ravenclaw probably. She's smart.

The Doctor resumes her wiggling.

Somewhere behind her, the sound of hoofbeats echo through the forest. 

Oh good, that would be the ramblers now.

  


* * *

  


“I could just walk. Or ride? Bet I can still ride a horse and then no-one has to be treated like a sack of potatoes and everyone’s happy.”

“What’s a potato?”

“It’s a sort of earth-apple. Apparently. I’m just translating.”

“Go on, we’ll put her on the back of yours, you’re small. The King’s not gonna want his bride-to-be trussed up like a sheep-to-market.” The leader says, sniggering somewhat half-heartedly.

“There’s been a misunderstanding here, really simple, you’ll laugh. So, I landed because I lost a certain piece of documentation. Uh, paper. Parchment? Words in a readable format-”

“I didn’t know women could read.”

“Read, write, punch people in the face - a whole range of skills. Ok, so, I wander into the castle and ask the King if one of his scribes could ‘knock something up for me’. Now at the time I didn’t know all this business about the Queen running off with her handmaid or the Prince with the court magician, so when he looks at me and says, ‘Indeed, I am certain I could get something _knocked up_ ’, I just think, ‘Score’. Well, so does he, but for different reasons-”

“No offence Tibalt, but don’t she look a bit queer for your- his Majesty?” A red-haired man asks the leader.

“That’s the aesthetic I’m going for, yeah. You’d think it would get me out of these situations more, but-”

“Look, weird dressed woman tied to a stick in the woods - she’s gonna be the one. How many ladies do you get like this, even in these parts? Now let’s get her to the castle, get our reward, and get on. I told Mart to make up a fire to melt down those goblets and I’m not going back without them.”

“I could help you nick them instead. Known across the universe for my sticky fingers.” The Doctor cajoles.

“You’re gonna need a kiln for that.” The red-haired man says, ignoring her.

“Took the crown jewels from Orias Alpha. Replaced them with fakes.”

“You don’t need a bloody kiln Brian, it’s gold, shove it up your arse and it’d melt.”

“I say fakes, the originals were Ch’Koron eggs about to hatch on the Minzibar’s head. Now _that_ would have been a diplomatic incident.”

“Just cus it’s bendy don’t mean you can melt it. You need bellows-”

“I stole a TARDIS from the Time Lords - Grand Theft Time Machine. I think I can manage a stack of ornamental drinkware-” 

“THAT’S _IT_!” Tibalt roars. The horses’ ears go back and they start pulling at their reins restlessly. “Brian - search her and get her on the horse. You don’t ask why the fire works, I don’t tell you, you come and get your freshly minted thryms in the morning and only worry about how to spend them. And work out how you’re both going to fit, I mean it, she’s going on yours, you’re the one making the deal. You - keep still or I cut through your ankle, promise it won’t make a damn bit of difference to the King if you can stand or not.”

The Doctor lets Tibalt slice through the ropes on her feet and stomps some life back into them. Ankle freedom’s greatly underrated. Shame it’s impossible to do a celebratory moonwalk on leaf litter.

Brian looks apologetically at her, and gives her a vague pat about her person. He pulls a squashed clingfilm package out of her pocket, avoiding her screwdriver.

"She's got food!"

"What is it?" Tibalt asks.

"Pieces of bread with other things in-between..."

“No, no, hands off.” The Doctor says, “I refuse to let a sandwich be the paradox that breaks this planet's back."

Tibalt puts his head in his hands. “Just… Get her on the horse.”

Brian pops the sandwich back in her pocket and raises his eyebrows at her. She gives him a commiserating shrug.

“You be wanting a boost? Norfolk’s a fifteen hander.”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Nah, nah. Up you go.” 

With the help of Brain’s hand-stirrup, the Doctor swings her leg over Norfolk, and suddenly remembers the pain in her backside. The actual one, not the entire metaphorical situation.

“Actually, I’d like to reconsider the sack of potatoes option-“

“Are you serious?” Tibalt moans.

With an electric zap, a blast scorches a tree by his right ear.

Even the horses stare in confusion, trying to process what’s happened.

“Alright mates, we’ll be borrowing our little two-hearted friend here. That good for everyone? Swell.”

A woman with bright pink hair and a leather bikini comes swaggering out of the trees, waving a blaster around. 

_‘What are you doing?’_ Is what the Doctor wants to say.

“What are you wearing?” Is what she actually says.

The woman gives her a wink and clicks some settings on her blaster.

“It’s called aesthetic, honey.”

And shoots her.

  


* * *

  


“Look, I’m trying to get decent fuel consumption while dragging a cuboid bloody time machine behind us, if you want us to get there faster, you can work out how to slipstream a goddamn police box.”

The Doctor tries to assess the situation without revealing she’s awake. Spaceship. In flight, so she can't just walk out of here. Voice of the woman who stunned her. Slight smell of sweat and contained humanoids. Probably actual humans. Angle and gravitational pull suggests they’ve not yet broken the atmosphere, but lack of noise and relative comfort of the ride suggests at least 43rd century technology.

“My dear, we must not take the good Lord’s name in vain.” 

Nope.

The Doctor opens her eyes.

There’s a distinctly out-of-place woman in an intricately embroidered dress leaning on one of the pilot’s shoulders and playing with her short pink hair.

“Oh, that was quick.” Says a bearded man with a grin, instantly snapping some cuffs on her. “Don’t worry, you’re perfectly safe. Just got to trade you off to some Shadprocs - gets us a solid ship and three-to-five off our sentence - but we’ll leave your time machine somewhere you can easily get to it and then you can scoot. Actually if you could scoot after about ten minutes so we can get lunch, then everyone wins. Well the Shadprocs don’t but their fault for doing business with known pirates, eh?”

“Then the cuffs are for…”

“Well I haven’t checked you yet. Rather you didn’t take an axe to me or something. My name’s Woody by the way. That’s Acer, and that’s Queen-“

“-Just Olivia is fine now.”

“And Olivia, who’s handling her first flight quite excellently if I may say so.”

“Thank you, Woody dear.”

The Doctor looks from one to the other.

“So, are you just hoping the Shadow Proclamation won’t pay any attention to her, or?”

“Honey, I could walk into the Shadproc HQ naked, with ‘Cross-Temporal Fraterniser’ lasered across my chest and so long as it was spelled correctly, they wouldn’t even notice.” Acer drawls.

She’s not wrong.

“What am I charged with?” The Doctor asks her.

“So, originally we were looking for someone else with a fluxation diode and a rudimentary possibility drive. But then a call came in that someone had wilfully rocketed past the guards in the Pi Carina System without a license - your charges in case that wasn’t clear - and since finding a Time Lord is like seeing a unicorn…”

“Am I living up to your expectations?”

“Eh, _I’ve_ certainly got the horn.“

“Alright, let’s not have a repeat of Valentine 3.” Woody says, clapping his hands and smiling good-naturedly at them. “If I may search you? Shadow Proclamation Arresting Guidelines state that I tell you: You do not have to agree to this procedure, however if nothing of danger is found on your person, as a Class 2 subject you will be able to be released - but if I do not search you-“

“Go ahead. I’m carrying a sonic resonance device, but it isn’t a weapon, though I’m amenable to you holding onto it until we leave the ship, by which time I will need it back in order to spring myself from the holding cell.”

“Seems reasonable.” He says, and after turning it in his fingers for a moment, puts it in a plant pot containing a budding Dahlia to stop it rolling about.

Woody plucks out the almost unrecognisable hunk of beige from her pocket and gives it a sniff. His smile becomes so wide, the Doctor’s amazed it doesn’t hurt.

“They’ve got food!” 

“Edible? Not porridge? Actual food?!” Acer shouts, putting ex-Queen Olivia’s hands on the flight controls and turning in her seat to see.

"It's cheese and pickle!" 

The woman cheers.

  



	7. The Sentient Being  (G, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which sometimes things evolve, Lee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Companion: [Lee Price](https://archiveofourown.org/series/822834)
> 
> Can be read as standalone.

* * *

  


“I think it just moved.”

“That’s an air bubble. You can eat it, promise.” The Doctor says, shovelling another spoonful of swamp-goo down.

“I’m really not sure I can…” Lee says queasily, prodding the mixture with his utensil. It’s the sort of thing his mother would say is ‘Just like tapioca darling’, but she’s eaten foie grois before and has a rather nasty habit of trying to push off ethical and social nightmares as cuisine. “Are you positive it isn’t alive?” 

The Doctor holds up her hand in a two-fingered salute. Then looks at it and changes it to a peace sign. Then the Star Trek one. Then bull horns.

“I solemnly vow never to feed you anything that you would deem ‘sentient’ in their ability to feel or perceive things; or that otherwise through augmentative or non-augmentative communication could tell you that it would prefer not to be eaten.”

“Or anything that could evolve to be like that either. I don’t want to have to look at some alien in the future and know that I chowed down on their great-great-grandfather.”

The Doctor raises an eyebrow and gives him A Look, which would have much more of an effect if there wasn’t green stuff running down her chin. Lee makes a vague gesture with his napkin towards his face, and she wipes it off with her sleeve before resuming said Look. He misses the first part of it because he can’t help closing his eyes and sighing, but her encore performance is excellent. 

“Where are we right now?” She says, waving her spiky spoon.

“Alterra. Planet-wise I mean, I think they said _Che’heri_ was this local Solarpunk kind of city area?”

“More specific.” The Doctor probes, scraping up the last bits of Kaana-sah.

“Dining at the pleasure of the Forest of Che’heri, if I’m getting that name right. Honestly, not clear if they’re dignitaries or an important family or…”

“The Forest of Che’heri. Forest. Alterra. Alt-terra. If we’re billions of years in the future, come on, seven times seven is…” The Doctor pops the last of the gunk in her mouth.

“Wait, are you telling me these are _actual trees_?! Like cherry trees - Che’heri? Oh, God.” He moans, carefully placing his hybridised spoon-fork on the table and leaning back in his seat. 

“And the multiplication?” The Doctor asks, licking her spork with relish.

“Forty nine…” Lee replies dazedly.

“So, next time you see our host, you can tell them that you ate the fruit of their great-to-the-forty-nine-millionth-power-grandparent in yogurt form this morning with a side of granola.”

Lee silently stares into his Kaana-sah. It bubbles. More like Kaana-deal-with-this-right-now, haha, am I right? Oh, _God_.

“They’ll probably be quite pleased.” The Doctor says happily. “Kind, inquisitive and non-judgemental lot. Shows what can happen when you take evolving into an ambulatory form the long way round. You know, I have a cutting of someone’s grand- Actually, hang on, where _did_ I put…? Oh, whoops.” The Doctor pats down her pockets and stares into space as if she’s realised she’s left the oven on.

Lee groans and looks out of the stained glass window. He wasn’t a fan of heights even before he… Well, before he met the Doctor, and it’s alarming the way their little nook juts out. But right now it’s almost grounding that there is still, well, ground.

“Would you like an empty bowl to be sick in? Because accepting or not, I’d still rather you didn’t throw up all over the table.”

“Just take it.”

The Doctor swaps their bowls and starts devouring the goop with gusto.

  



	8. The Space Priest  (T-M, Gen-F/F)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the problem with a costume is that it’s always a self-portrait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story-Specific warnings: Non-Specific Sexual References

* * *

  


“I knew a priest once. She wore a few more clothes than you. Usually holographic though. Liked me and everyone else to be a bit more naked, so it all balances out I suppose.”

“If you wanted to be naked, you could have told me before I tied you up.” The woman says, pursing her crimson lips and giving her a stern but playful look. 

“I’m not complaining. So long as everyone’s comfortable, that’s the main thing.” The Doctor says brightly.

Like a shark, the woman starts circling her chair, trailing a red-nailed hand across her shoulders, scraping the back of the Doctor’s neck and apparently causing her to sneeze.

“Speaking of comfort, your priest friend? How did she _treat_ you?” The woman asks, cracking her riding crop against a table with an array of bizarre objects on it. 

“Oh, very well, all things considered. She smuggled me marshmallows.” The Doctor says with a bashful smile, and the woman’s expression changes from seductive to slightly puzzled.

“How do I put this delicately… You are aware of what I do?”

“You administer whippings to sinners according to your website. Nice font by the way. Not a problem for me, my last priest was - and _is_ \- part zombie, part Dalek, but I still pop round occasionally to help her put up some shelves.”

Something buzzes in the Doctor’s bound hand as she winks, and the woman silently plucks it off her. 

“That’s much funnier if you know it’s a screwdriver.”

The woman places it on the side table between two silver ovoids, and regards the Doctor thoughtfully.

“Contraband aside, you don’t seem much of a sinner to me.”

“Oh, I’m very deceptive. But honestly, I’m just looking for a Nojaliak novices’s mala and then I’ll be on my way.”

“And you think _I’ve_ stolen it? You are a self-confessed sinner, handcuffed to my chair and accusing me of heinous crimes. Why should I let you go?” The woman asks, stroking her riding crop up the Doctor’s neck.

“Because,” She whispers, so the woman brings her ear to her lips, “I don’t have any money.” 

  


* * *

  


“I’m the Doctor, by the way.” She says, rolling her freed ankles until they click and proceeding to moonwalk across the hardwood floor.

“I know, it was on your registration form.” The woman says flatly, pulling on the surprisingly sensible emergency clothes she keeps under the bed in case a client needs medical assistance. No free access to the goods. Not in this economy.

“…And your name?” The Doctor asks, collecting her screwdriver and pointing it around the room.

“No.”

“‘No is your name’, or ‘No, you’re not telling me your name’?”

“The second one.”

“Alright, the Doctor isn’t my name either.” She says, putting the screwdriver in her pocket and sitting on the bed with a bounce, crossing her legs and looking vexed.

“Good, then we shall remain nameless.” The woman says firmly, one hand on her hip, the other pointing out the door. The Doctor doesn’t move, but taps her fingers on her knee, while her eyes peer about as if seeing some invisible diagram in front of her.

"Your wife on the front desk called you Izzy." She says, sticking an imaginary pin in her imaginary map.

"Of _course_ she did." The woman whispers to herself, watching the Doctor and her gestures as if she’s seen all this before and isn’t sure if she wants to again. "Kate doesn't usually talk to the clients."

"Well, she thought I was _sweet_." The Doctor says proudly. “…And lost." She admits.

“Aren’t you?” The woman says with a raised eyebrow. The Doctor blinks a few times as she comes back into the room and sighs at her.

“Why does it always get so deep with priests?”

The woman bangs on the door to emphasise her pointing.

“I’m not a priest. It’s a costume, a fancy for the terminally boring, now get out of this room, and my entire building.”

“Ok, but one thing first, just one thing. You like being the focus of attention, right? But privately, able to leave at a moment’s notice. You like to be worshipped - though you wouldn’t phrase it quite like that, and you like to be listened to, oh yes, but more than that you want to be _challenged_.” The Doctor’s eyes glitter, she bounds to her feet, and the woman gets a sinking feeling…and a rising one. “So, my question to you, which is my question to _myself_ is: Where in San Fransisco might I find a stolen religious alien artefact?”

“I know a man who could tell you.” The woman says in a low voice, the Doctor an inch from her nose. Probably checking the dilation of her pupils. She knows her type.

“No,” The Doctor says, “Why don't _you_ tell me?” 

  


* * *

  


It’s important not to define your life by your mistakes.

But it really helps if you don’t keep making the same ones over and over again.

The woman slams the car door shut, and does a quick sun salutation to stretch her back. Why is the drive to the Marina always hell? Why is driving anywhere in this city hell?

Carefully keeping her nails out of the way, she slaps the flat of her hand against the Doctor’s window.

“Bah! I wasn’t thinking, I was sleeping! Wait. Reverse that.” She gabbles, stumbling out into the car park.

“Come here, your mistress demands it.” The woman says. The Doctor winces.

“Mmnmm. No, that’s not going to work for me.”

“Master?”

“Worse, if anything.”

“Domme?”

The Doctor thinks for a moment.

“…Yep, Domme is fine. Why _have_ they never disguised themselves as a Dominic, or ‘ique’? Seems the obvious joke to make now you say it.”

The woman leads them over to a set of pipes that are filling the air with an unearthly gurgling sound.

“This is the Wave Organ. If I were an alien priest conducting strange alien rituals, then I’d want a place to cover up my strange alien ritual _sounds_. If you wanted a distinctive place to be found by your people or remember where you left your spaceship, the Golden Gate Bridge is to your left, and that island over there is Alcatraz, which used to be a maximum security prison, and is probably good for at least three aliens, two terrorist organisations and an international crime syndicate.”

The Doctor raises her eyebrows and points her screwdriver at the island, then along the water, all the way to where they’re standing. The pitch changes about half-way along.

“Ding, ding, ding.” The Doctor says, bending down and opening an almost invisible hatch in the sculpture. She looks up at the woman with a grin. “We have a winner.”

Against her better judgement - not that she has any anymore, she’s given it up for Lent - the woman follows her down into the dark.

“Still alright?” The Doctor asks, using her screwdriver as a torch, clearly trying - and failing - to read her expression. She’s rather solicitous. Probably because if you can’t promise 'safe' or 'sane', you really want to get that 'consensual' down.

“Not the first warm, wet, slightly salty tunnel I’ve been in, I assure you.”

The Doctor swipes her fingers along the wall, and sucks them. The woman blinks. It’s gross. It’s sexy. It’s the ultimate power play, and she’s not even sure it’s on purpose.

“Oh yes, someone’s here who shouldn’t be. Dorrichian. Darn it, I hate when it’s a stereotype.” She growls and starts striding off, the woman having to follow at a trot.

“You got that from wall slime?”

“I _know_ slime.” 

“Alright. Dorrichian?”

“They're a nice bunch on the whole, don’t misunderstand me, but see they’re… Logical is what they would call it. Fiercely so. Their priests aren’t really priests, they’re gatekeepers - more about repressing beliefs or fantasies or fictions than actually doing anything of use. The sort of people who see a starving person praying and tells them it’s pointless and they should stop, rather than giving the person food, you know what I mean?”

The Doctor turns and starts walking backwards at the same pace. The woman nods. 

“Nothing wrong with the species, most of them are wonderful - excellent chess players, researchers, their technical art skills are extraordinary, but the priests… It requires a certain amount of dogma to get to that level. Head and hearts, there’s a balance there.”

“So why have they stolen the thing?”

“Mala. Buddhist ‘prayer beads’ for lack of a better term. You have them in your time too. They belong to a Nojaliak girl I know called Dova. She’ll let them go, it’s her way, she doesn’t want to cling. But it’s her first retreat and I want to get them back for her, rather than having a hate crime hanging over her head.”

“Are they important?”

“They are to her.” The Doctor says finally, the sonic starts to squeal, and with a bang she walks straight into a metal door. 

She rubs the back off her head and groans.

“Start looking around for an open window, I’ve been assured that’s how it works.”

  


* * *

  


“HEATHENS!” The blob monster roars, its bloated body trapped in the doorway.

“See this is a bit more of what I was expecting! You’ve got to step your game up!” The Doctor shouts, obscenely jubilant, dragging her by the hand back down the slippery tunnel as fast as they can go, beads wrapped around one wrist, the tassel bouncing against her as they run.

They scramble out into the night, the woman clutching her chest and collapsing on the cobblestones, the Doctor whooping and leaping about like a moon-drunk hare.

“Mind if I just text a threat to the Dorrichian Enforcement and Theological Heads to come and pick this one up? Thanks.” The Doctor delves into her pocket, and before the woman can find the breath to speak, she’s sonicked her phone and started tapping away.

Her chest is on fire. There’s a blob monster under the bay. Someone’s holding her unlocked phone in their hands. Said someone is a time traveller with a magic screwdriver.

“Do you want to go and get a coffee? Always best to ease the rush down. Or tea - are you from London or did you just live there a while, I never asked.”

And she wants to get coffee.

The Doctor passes her the phone back, and something of her thoughts must be written on her face. Probably in a Munchian sort of scream.

“Easy now, all done.” The Doctor says softly, crouching down to her. A roar echoes through the Wave Organ pipes. “Alright, mostly done. Done in ten minutes or so. Come on, let’s get going, don’t need to be here to meet DEATH.” The woman pulls away from her as the Doctor helps her to her feet. “No, no, that’s just their acronym. Sorry, I forget this can be a bit much for a first timer.”

The Doctor holds her hand as they walk, squeezing it to give her something to focus on. The woman automatically guides her to the corner that might have a general store with a coffee machine. 

“You weren't joking about the alien thing.” The woman says finally. The Doctor stops and faces her, frowning perplexedly.

“Why did you go along with me if you thought I was?” 

The woman swallows. The Doctor reaches out for her other hand, and she lets her take it and rub circles on her palms with her thumbs. It’s not dissimilar to what she does afterwards with some of her clients.

“I hear that sort of nonsense all the time. For every time traveller with a necrophilic nun fetish, there's a taxidermist who rules the underworld, or receptionist who's secretly an international assassin. People make up all kinds of stories to kid themselves they're still in control when it's all spiralling away from them.”

“So why-“

“I wanted to know the answer to the puzzle.”

They stand silently, staring at each other. A car speeds by, blasting its horn. The woman curls her fingers around the Doctor’s wrists. That _can’t_ be her pulse.

“You played along with a mad woman’s riddle, dropped all of your clients, drove for two hours across a gridlocked city, and followed her into a secret tunnel leading to an ex-maximum security prison because you were _bored_  ?"

The Doctor’s look of awe turns into a wide grin that wrinkles her nose, and she pulls their clasped hands to her chest, making the woman fall forward into her.

“What are you doing later? Later as in any non-specific time in the near future. You _and_ Kate of course, I’ve had married ones before, I offer an excellent array of bunkbeds-” She says in a rush.

The woman pulls back, and the Doctor releases her. She laughs in spite of the insanity of the situation. Possibly because of it.

“Contrary to popular belief, I don’t actually have a death wish, it just seems that way because people keep trying to kill me.”

The Doctor opens her mouth to protest.

“I don’t care if it’s not always like that. Not me. Not Kate. Never Kate. There isn’t a wonder in the universe that could be worth her - leaving her, or putting her in danger for.”

The Doctor bites her lip and nods. The woman takes her hand and they carry on walking.

“Sure you don’t at least want to return the mala with me? Dova will want to thank you.”

“So you can get me addicted to your lifestyle? No, you come to me, I don’t come to you. I will however,” The woman says, “Buy you a coffee. American and terrible, but so am I.”

The Doctor allows herself to be waved off to a bench on the bay, and seems at least somewhat mollified by having an answer to her earlier question.

The woman joins her a few minutes later, handing her a cup of truly awful coffee and…

“Marshmallows. See, I know you already. Well, I know what you like.”

The Doctor smiles and starts rootling for a pink one. They clink their cardboard cups together - and their marshmallows - and watch the tide lap against the harbour.

“So… Aliens then.”

“Yep.”

“Are you an alien?”

“Yep.”

“If I gave you a name and address, could you tell me if the person living there was an alien?”

“If I gave you a name and a sin, could you tell me if that person was on your client list?”

“Touché.”

  



	9. The Sisters  (T, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a person is kidnapped, the Doctor gets drunk, there’s a woman with a bus, and the pig is here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Companions: [Lee Price](https://archiveofourown.org/series/822834), [The Pig With Many Names](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12151005), and [A Woman With A Bus](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Iris_Wildthyme).

* * *

  


The Doctor is not herself. Not in a regenerating kind of way - apparently that involves a lot of light and heat and Lee’s fairly certain he’d recognise his friend going supernova. But she is upset about something.

She landed in his en-suite at one in the morning, said she had something very important to ask him, then proceeded to rig up his old Xbox 360 and has been playing Sonic The Hedgehog for the last three hours. It’s Sonic ’06, so whatever she’s putting off must be bad.

It’s not so much the avoiding of her problems - no matter how much the Doctor likes to pretend she faces things head-on, she’s made of approximately sixty-percent water, and forty-percent purest denial - but it’s the _way_ she’s avoiding it. 

At first when he asked her about her problem, she’d say, “Five more minutes.” Then it progressed to, “Watch, there’s basically no collision detection in this game, want to see me finish the Sonic stage as Knuckles?” Until eventually she stopped responding in anything other than annoyed noises and turning her back on him like a mardy toddler. Even for her it’s a bit much. 

Eventually he gives her up for lost and tries to get back to sleep. There’s a beanbag on the floor, but the Doctor’s sat on his bed instead, so he ends up having to curl awkwardly around her, covering his eyes so he can’t see the flickering lights. At least she consented to wear headphones.

Lee wakes up around 5am to what he would affectionately call her ‘unskippable-cutscene bouncing’, and less affectionately her ‘being a complete pain in the arse’. He pulls the t-shirt off his face, and winces at the light.

Blearily he watches the credits roll until it boots her back out into the menu. Tired and fuzzy-headed, he doesn’t say anything as she deletes her save data, reopens the game and starts all over again. She furiously button mashes through the opening cutscene, which does nothing, and he nearly has a heart attack when she suddenly shouts: 

“Why is it always blessed _flames_!”

Lee jumps up and claps a hand over her mouth, and as the hall light comes on, she rolls off the bed with a thump, looking up at him aghast.

“Leelah Price, what on earth do you think you’re doing?”

“Sorry, Mum, headphones came out.”

The door opens with a creak, and his mother puts her head round.

“Have you been playing video games all night?”

“No, I just woke up early.” It’s not a lie, he hasn’t played any at all.

“Hmm. Well, would you like anything while I’m up? Tea? A glass of water?” She asks, gesturing with her glass as if he can’t see the tablets fizzing away in there.

“No thanks, I’m fine.”

“Well, keep it down petal, I have a bit of a headache.”

“Sure.” He says as she closes the door again. 

The Doctor sighs with relief somewhere under his bed.

“God, I’ve got to move out.” Lee mutters to himself. At last he rolls over and peers down at the Doctor, who’s still lying there, looking up at him.

“You want to tell me what’s going on now?” He asks.

She closes her eyes.

“I’ve been summoned to somewhere I don’t want to go to with this- well, just in case they try to keep me there. They shouldn’t, it’s paranoia, but rules change, and- I think if I go with you, it might decrease the chance of that happening. But I can’t promise your safety. At all. Or you might not be able to come home. Anything could happen.”

“Not sure how that’s different to usual.” He says, honestly. The Doctor sits up and looks angry with herself. 

“It’s selfish and could get you killed - or stranded. There’s absolutely no reason for you to come.”

“You want me to. That’ll do.” Lee says, rubbing his eyes and picking through the clothes strewn on the floor. 

“Now look away will you, my dignity reserves are low enough as it is.” He adds, pulling off his pyjama top and struggling into his binder.

  


* * *

  


“Figured we were going somewhere grim, but this is a bit more Dante than I was expecting.” Lee says.

Everywhere he looks is rock and fire, or else weird carvings and women in red robes. The skies are dark and churning, storms growling in the distance, and the land seems vast and desolate, stretching on as far as he can see, nestled between huge cliffs of red stone, teaming with caves lit by flaming torches.

Something cold touches his fingers and he flinches. The Doctor pulls her hand back to her side without looking at him. Hoping he’s understood her, he reaches out and takes it. Immediately the Doctor’s fingers curl around him like a vice. Her hand almost twitches in his, not quite trembling, and he realises it’s her pulse, hearts beating fast and strong as if this is their last show. But her face shows none of it, she stands confidently, impassive and silent as she’s been the whole journey here.

“You have arrived under your own power. How thoughtful of you. It is so much easier than having to drag you here kicking and screaming.” A lady in a red robe says to the Doctor. 

“Though I confess, your physical appearance surprises me,” She continues, “I thought your desire for a male form was the reason you were so reluctant to accept your birthright among us in the first place.”

The grip on his hand increases painfully, and he tries to return it equally. 

“I will speak to Ohila.” The Doctor says, voice low enough to be a growl, the same note in it he gets when he’s trying too hard.

“Ah, but you will not speak to Ohila.” The lady says, “For she is the reason we have brought you here. Our Superior - as delegation to Gallifrey - has gone missing, presumably being detained by the Grand Council for her knowledge of the Sacred Flame and the Elixir of Life, and we wish to have her returned. They have abducted a Sister before, we will not permit this to happen a second time.”

“Why me?”

“Because you are one of few who know our ways, but also those of the Time Lords, to enough of a degree that-“

The Doctor lets out a bark of laughter.

“I was _six_ Harena, I don’t know your ways!”

“It is more than most. You understand the importance of the Flame - if not its secrets - and you have drank of the Elixir in both its forms, this will suffice.”

The lady, Harena, gestures down the valley.

“You are not our only choice, and we shall not be sending you until we are ready. You may join her if you wish. Your TARDIS will not be entered by any living thing until the issue is resolved.”

Lee turns to see another, much younger woman in red robes trying to coax the Doctor’s pig out of the TARDIS. He almost laughs as she tries to push it. It’s the size of a small settee and it tries to take a bite out of her arm with a squeal.

He wiggles his hand free of the Doctor’s, and walks the few meters to the ship. Scratching the pig’s ears, he reaches over and opens up the cupboard in the TARDIS door, pulling out a large carrot that’s sat in place of a phone on top of the receiver. Then he leads the pig over to the Doctor and gives it its treat.

“That’s called ‘manners’.” Lee says as patronisingly as possible, taking the Doctor’s hand again.

Harena finally deigns to look at him, as if he has shown himself to be more than ornamental, but without another word, she gestures to the other one, and the women walk away.

For a while, he and the Doctor stand there, her squeezing his hand a few times, then stopping, then squeezing again. He’s not sure if it’s helping her feel better or if she’s just stewing. The pig has taken to snuffling along the ground, and he finds himself hoping it’ll lie on some important bit of tech or religious stuff, or whatever it is these people like.

“Doesn’t sound like they’re going to keep you. These lot. Ladies In Red.” 

Lee starts to hum it, his mother’s played that song so many times he knows it off by heart. He hates the bloody thing. But he swings his hand along with it until it unbalances the Doctor enough to take a step forward, then another, and another, as he walks in the direction Harena pointed.

“The Sisterhood Of Karn.” The Doctor says finally.

“Which you are not one of.” He adds, in case it helps.

“Which I am not one of.” She says, a little more confidently.

Releasing his grip, but letting her keep hold of his hand, Lee decides he’ll find out what’s going on later. He’s used to not understanding things. Has to be with her. What does he need to know really? 

He’s in not-Hell, with not-witches, and not-magic. The TARDIS is grounded. The pig is here.

Lee clucks with his tongue. 

“Come on Sullivan.” He names it, feeling in a musical mood today.

  


* * *

  


They follow the valley, still not finding anyone. It seems unfair to make the Sisters walk too far, so naturally they keep on going. 

Lee’s just about decided that they’ve made some mistake here and that the Doctor’s the only person they’ve invited, when they round a corner and he’s suddenly unsure whether or not this is all just a weird nightmare and he’s still back in bed.

There’s a bus.

A red, double-decker bus.

The Number 22 to Putney Common.

Smack bang in the middle of a canyon on an alien planet.

The Doctor stops still and lets go of his hand. Her jaw drops and an exhausted, disbelieving noise escapes her - the same sort of one he makes whenever he sees the news.

“No, no, not Iris. You aren’t mad enough to call Iris Wildthyme, please, please just be an aristocratic British jewel thief with an adrenaline addiction…”

The bus beeps, and the doors open.

"Coo-eee! Doctor! They got you too?!" Cries a woman, emerging from inside and waving at them.

It's his Auntie Maud.

It isn't of course, she's back on Earth, smoking six packs a day and somehow still not dying. But it's that same kind of slightly sozzled, slightly too made up, slightly...inappropriate feeling old woman.

She hurries over, surprisingly sprightly for someone in their sixties (if he's being kind).

"Now look at _you_  !” Iris exclaims, stroking the Doctor’s jacket and holding her at arm's length to see her better. “Rassilon knows I missed being a lesbian - what cup size are you dear, those are lovely."

The pig snorts and Lee pretends to be an interestingly shaped spike of rock. He’s about the right colour.

"And you've got a pig! Well it's no talking panda, but it's nice you're trying to catch up to me. What does it do? And a human - of course. And what does it do? Besides impressions? Let me guess - Igneous? Sedimentary? Dwayne Johnson?"

“Iris, Lee. Lee, Iris.” The Doctor says flatly. “Pig Who Hasn’t Decided On A Name, Iris. Iris, Pig Who Hasn’t Decided On A Name.”

Iris pulls what looks like an asparagus out of her purse, and the pig takes it happily. Lee holds out his hand and she shakes it with surprising firmness.

“Well come in, come in. Sure I can find us a tipple. Lots to talk about, we need a catch up.” Iris says, wrapping an arm around the Doctor’s and pulling her along. “I see you’re not walking like old Frobisher anymore? I liked your penguin run. All waddle waddle across College Green, with your little angry face like someone had just stolen your biscuits."

"But-”

“Or was it Saint Luke’s? I never understood the name change.”

“It was always Saint Lu-“

“I was teaching in Clifton for a while. Creative writing. Really I was just there to watch over my ex-husband in this giant safe under the student housing. Finally got it open a century or so in, and all that was in there was a hundred and fifty bags of Ritz crackers and thirty two tins of Campbell's tomato soup from 1962. Ate the lot of course, that was a night and a half." 

Iris laughs like a drain, and Lee whispers to the Doctor, "I'm deeply sorry for every time I ever thought you were off your trolley. You’ve done really well.”

"Apology accepted." The Doctor replies, through gritted teeth.

Iris recovers herself and leans in conspiratorially. 

“Of course, we do have business to attend to. Now this is just a rumour, but I’ve heard Ohila’s refusing to hand over any more Elixir - that stuff they use to heal you or regenerate you if you’re too far gone - something about a war? Don’t know if that rings any bells, but either way, sounds like she’s completely had it because Rassilon’s back - don’t ask me how or why - and sounds like someone’s been being a bit heavy-handed with the sauce.” She makes a drinking motion.

Iris heads in first and the Doctor follows. Feeling a little bit like he should be patting down his pockets for change, Lee steps into the bus. 

There’s a small living-dining area, steps up to the second floor, and a kitchenette at the back. He looks around, then steps out of the bus again. He counts the windows. Steps back in again.

“It’s smaller on the inside.”

“Tell me about it.” Grumbles the Doctor, folding herself up into a bench seat, and pushing away Iris when she attempts to sit on her lap to get across her.

The pig boards the bus and doesn’t wait for him to move, shoving at the back of his knees so he almost falls over and forcing him to climb onto the table.

“Alright, I’ll bite,” The Doctor says, as Iris rummages in a fridge. Lee’s fairly certain he hears her mumble _“I bloody hope so”_ , and wishes he hadn’t. “Why have they dragged you here Iris?"

"I was a member once." She says, pulling out a few bottles. Then a few more. And some more from a cupboard. Then some glasses as an afterthought.

The Doctor snorts.

"You can't- It's not a _fan club_. You don't just fill out a form, pay them a couple of quid, and get a membership card that you only ever use for de-icing the ship.”

"Or for making lines." Iris says, sliding her booze along the table.

The Doctor points at Lee, “Oi, not in front of-"

"For God's sake, I'm twenty two, I know what you’re talking about." Lee snaps, realising he sounds about twelve.

"I was thinking about sherbet love, weren't you Doctor?"

"Those little sticks of them." She says, ordering the bottles from tallest to smallest.

"Rotten mind this one." Iris says and winks at him. 

Suddenly it’s all too much like one of his mother’s parties to bear.

“Mind if I go and have a look around? I won’t go far.” Lee asks. The Doctor looks fine. Whinging, yes, but not scared at all.

She gives him a nod, and passes him the sonic. It’s a surprisingly weighty moment to be having while sat on a table.

“You’ve got a sonic, right Iris?” The Doctor asks.

“Sonic bottle-opener if I can find it.” Iris replies, digging through her kitchen drawers.

“Then off you go. Have fun. Adventures. I’ll be here…” The Doctor says melodramatically, but fighting a smile. Yeah, she’s putting it on a little. Good. She had him worried a bit back there.

Lee clambers out, sliding across the table, climbing on a luggage rack and swinging to the step using the grab rails so he doesn’t land on the pig.

_“You know, I honestly thought you'd have regenerated into a man. You know, for symmetry."_

_"Nah love, I did that once, I'm not doing it again, even for the meta."_

The skies are still stormy and thundering occasionally, but there’s no rain, and he peers around for somewhere to explore. 

As he eyes up a little cave in the side of the cliff, he hears a whoop and a shrill buzzing behind him. He stops and looks back at the bus and falls over as the pig walks into the back of his knees again.

“Too much for you too, Sara?”

The pig snorts.

  


* * *

  


Lee doesn’t think more than an hour passes in his wanderings. Nothing the Doctor would probably find thrilling, but still interesting. The cave had some interesting engravings in, with snakes and birds and wolves, and there was an amazingly high-tech looking databank whirring away in one of its offshoots. He also found some kind of altar, where he felt forced to tie the pig a harness made out of a bit of leathery rope, because even if he can joke about the pig crushing religious iconography, it’s not something he’d actually like it to do.

Iris is outside the bus, looking up at the growling sky with a little brass telescope. He’s almost right next to her before she notices him. And before _he_ notices the smell of alcohol coming off of her that’s strong enough to make his nose drunk.

“Ah Lee, thas good. Doctor was’n sure of the time so I said I’d go out and check, but all these darn clouds.” Iris says, patting him vaguely. A Time Lord - he assumes - looking at the sky to tell time. Oh well, he can’t blame the Doctor for trying to get rid of her.

Then Iris looks down at the pig and screeches with mirth. 

"That's'a -hic- Pythian Transgression Accumulator! Hey Doccy, come'n'see what your boy’s tied your pig up with!"

His brain gets stuck somewhere between ‘the rope has a title’ and ‘Doccy’.

"If it's important I can take it off." Lee babbles, looking at the knots.

“Ha! Don't you dare! Funniest thing I've seen all day and I've been hallucinating for the last half hour."

There’s a snort of laughter from the doorway of the bus, and he sees the Doctor slumped in it, with a bottle.

Anger immediately swinging the meter all the way round back to calm again, he drops the Pythian Pig Harness and walks over to her. The pig knows better than to follow.

"How much have you drank?" Lee says, taking a deep breath and having to literally bite his tongue.

"Shhh!" She hushes him, waving him off. He pulls the bottle from her hand.

"Wait, this is ginger beer." 

"Mmhmm." 

"There's no alcohol in this." 

"D'snt need t'be. Atchly helps 'f therisn'any." A sudden realisation about why she’s always been so keen on ginger-nuts barrels into his brain. Alien, alien, she’s a goddamn alien, how does he keep forgetting this?

"Oh for the love of- This isn’t good.” He says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

The Doctor pulls a pair of sunglasses out of nowhere, clumsily putting them on. 

"'M a rebel. A bad boy. Girl. Wharever." 

"You're a bad person." 

"Hey, tha's not the same thing!" She whines.

“These people are trying to rescue someone, you’re supposed to be helping them, and instead you're getting pissed with some old biddy in the back of a bus!” Lee yells, apparently not as calm as he thought.

The Doctor looks down at her feet and the sunglasses slide off her nose.

“Maybe I don’t want to help them.”

“Well, find a new name, but until then, you’ve got a duty.” He says.

“Of care.” The Doctor whispers, looking at him, and sighs a cloud of something orange into the air.

Lee tries to pretend this is an entirely normal way to become sober and perches on the edge of the step next to her. 

“Sorry. This place brings out the worst in me. And the place I’m going. And the people I’m working with. And the person I’m rescuing. And the people I’m rescuing her from. And that woman over there.” She hides her head in her hands.

“I know. I mean I don’t, but…” Lee leans on her. It’s that kind of day. 

He stares out into the canyon. Iris is still looking up into the sky.

“If she’s a Time Lord, why does alcohol do it for her and ginger for you? 

“Next question.”

“If Iris is allowed her TARDIS, why aren’t you?”

“Next question.”

“If the Sisters aren’t Time Lords, what species are they?”

“Next question.”

“If that’s thunder, where is the rain and lightning?”

The Doctor finally looks up.

“It isn’t thunder.” She says, resting her chin on her hands. “It’s someone trying to open a trans-dimensional portal through a reality lock.”

There’s a bang, the clouds jump half a sky to the left, and Iris falls onto her backside.

“And that’s them succeeding.” She whispers.

  


* * *

  


It takes them a while to locate the actual breach - in the end it’s Iris and her telescope that finds it.

There’s a tiny gap in the sky. Barely visible. A patch of deep blue and stars instead of churning storm.

“It’s too small. They’ve got the finesse but not the power.” The Doctor says.

“Nah, you could drive a bus through that.” Iris grins manically. “Luckily for them.”

She walks back to her TARDIS and sits in the front seat, pressing buttons on her dashboard until a steering wheel pops out.

“You two coming? I’m more of a get-away driver.”

Lee looks at the Doctor. She nods.

The pig follows them on-board and it takes a few minutes to try and convince it to go upstairs, a feat eventually achieved with a can of beans - _”No, Iris, it’s not ok if they have sausages in!”_ \- and it takes even longer to sweep all of the empty bottles out of the door - _“If I’m flying in a death trap I’m not flying in a death trap full of broken glass”_ \- but eventually they’re ready to go.

“Alright, now I’m pretty drunk and this is pretty impossible, so let’s all remember to stay loose, keep our tongues away from our teeth, and have a good time!”

The sound of a TARDIS engine in reverse whirs up.

“Come on bus, do your stuff.” Lee whispers.

They start driving faster and faster, until with a gut wrenching lurch they pull away from the ground and into the air.

The Doctor has her eyes tightly closed and has a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the table, and for all the fear about what’s about to happen, Lee laughs. The Doctor opens one eye and sticks her tongue out at him.

Well, if you’re about to die, might as well be silly.

In actual fact, the approach to the portal goes pretty smoothly. It still doesn’t look big enough, but now’s probably not the best time to tell Iris that.

“It still doesn’t look big enough!” The Doctor shouts.

“Don’t worry Doctor, it’s a wormhole, I’m good with worms, remember? Curly hair, ego, coat? Now let’s do this thing!”

With a thrum, the TARDIS zooms forwards, and suddenly they’re not surrounded by clouds any more, but bright starry sky.

The Doctor immediately scrambles to the front of the bus, looking down as best she can.

“That thing, the boxy bit, right there, land there.”

“Alright, alright, keep your hair on, this is rocket science you know.” Iris says, and Lee finds himself sliding off the seat and having to grab onto a side rail as the bus goes into a steep dive. He might have screamed a bit, but if he does, neither of them bring it up.

With a crash, she breaks a hole in a wall, which makes Lee’s teeth rattle. Then she reverses neatly, and turns them around so the door lines up with the gap.

“This is your stop dears.” Iris says exhaustedly, and leans on the wheel, bravado dissipating now they’re back on the ground.

The Doctor looks at him. He nods.

  


* * *

  


They’re in almost the exactly correct place. Lee doesn’t ask how the Doctor knew.

The cells aren’t like any in any dungeon or jail he’s ever seen. There aren’t any doors, they’re all open, gaps recessed into the wall, but they are still quite clearly cells. An aura of menace emanates from them, and he has the strangest feeling that if the Doctor pushed him into one of them and told him to stay, he wouldn’t be able to leave.

There’s a woman sat against a wall in one of the alcoves. Gallifreyan is scrawled on the walls and up her arms, bigger and bigger circles until he knows it can’t be legible. When she shakes the hair out of her face he sees it’s there too, a fraction of a giant character, or word, or sentence - he doesn’t know, he can’t read it.

“Do you know what it says?” He asks the Doctor.

She screws up her face and blinks a few times, as if she’s looking at an optometrist’s chart and can’t make out the letters.

“On her hand?” Lee points, all the rings and lines visible on that one.

The Doctor frowns and tilts her head. It occurs to him that maybe she can’t read it either.

The woman’s hand suddenly moves, grabbing the Doctor and pulling her close.

“She cannot hear! She is blessed! They cannot drip poison in her ears for she has none!”

“Ohila? Hear? Can you hear me?” The Doctor says, slightly panicked. The woman releases her and slumps, muttering breathlessly.

“You, always you. Yes, I can. They have exposed me to it, the vortex, please get me back to Karn.”

“Can you stand? Walk?” The Doctor asks, pulling her up.

There’s a sudden sound of doors opening, boots marching and a voice barking orders.

“Run!” She yells, pushing Ohila in front of her, and reaching back to grab Lee’s collar.

They’ve almost made it out of the cells when it happens.

A man rounds the corner behind them and raises a metal hand, and it’s as if time itself slows down.

With a certainty he’s never felt in his life, Lee knows that it’s a weapon. That he’s about to die. They all are. And the Doctor hasn’t noticed.

His feet are still moving, but so is his hand, by instinct and reflex alone. It reaches into his pocket.

Flinging his arm back behind him, he squeezes the sonic screwdriver, the buzz feeling like an electric shock running up and into his body, as the man screams and clutches his exploding hand at the wrist.

Time speeds up again and he slams into a wall, shirt ripping as the Doctor drags him forward, through the hole at the end of the corridor and back into the bus.

“Go! Now!” The Doctor screams at Iris, who guns it and they zoom into the sky.

He tries to clamber onto one of the bench seats, while the Doctor helps Ohila into the other one. She’s waving her away while whispering words that make no sense.

“Hand. Hand. Hand just- I- His hand.” Lee stutters, unable to stop himself any more than Ohila can. The Doctor turns away from the muttering Sister. He wants to tell her not to, it’s not important, the woman needs him more than he does, it’s fine, he can’t stop saying it, but it’s fine. He watches the hand explode again in his mind, and hears himself saying it again.

“What hand?” The Doctor says, stroking his hair gently. He shouldn’t be taking up her time like this.

“Red, red man. Met- met- met- I-“ Lee pushes the sonic into her hands. Two hands. Whole hands. 

Even Iris has craned her head back to look at him. There’s no reason he can’t talk. Taking a too-deep breath, he covers his eyes.

“There was a man in red with a metal hand who was going to kill us and I sonicked his hand and it blew up and he screamed.”

There, that wasn’t so hard. But now he can’t take his hands away from his eyes. This is ridiculous.

“Hang on? You almost got caught by Rassilon himself? Oh, give the lad a medal. I mean it, I got one in a drawer somewhere he can have.”

“Quiet, Iris.” The Doctor says, and he feels himself being pulled against her. She smells like TARDIS and rain and the smell of smoke from a snuffed out candle.

“It’s ok,” He whispers, voice returned. “I don’t need-“

“I do. I nearly died a minute ago apparently.” The Doctor says, letting the sonic fall on the floor.

It’s strangely comforting, tucked up together in a too-small TARDIS, and considering it took so little time to get to Gallifrey, it seems to take an age to get back.

  


* * *

  


The skies are still swirling with clouds, but the noise has stopped. Just the wind blowing through the canyons and the sound of crackling fires.

Ohila is sat on a chair, staring into space occasionally, but more and more present. She’s stroking the pig, which for once isn’t showing its affection by trying to crush the petter’s feet.

“Well that was a lovely catch up.” Iris says, “Have to find somewhere a little less formal and a bit more comfortable next time, eh? I’ll get the Fentimans in, we’ll make a night of it.”

The Doctor shakes her head, but when Iris offers her her cheek, she kisses it.

Iris pulls Lee into a hug, then presses something into his hand. It’s a little medal saying ‘The Gauntlet-Exploder Of Rassilon’.

The Doctor leans over his shoulder. “I believe that’s a joke.”

Lee forces a smile - he’s really not sure how he feels about it all yet.

“Sweetheart,” Iris says, reeking of booze still, but surprisingly sober, “Ohila went over there because that man has been using the Elixir to extend his life, which he’s had far too much of already. Like Beyoncé says, he’ll have another hand in a minute - that’s the original version, I helped her write it.”

This time Lee actually laughs.

“Well, I’ll be seeing you all. Especially you, my dear.” Iris says with a last wink as she gets into her bus and dematerialises with a whale-like, _prowv prowv_.

The Doctor turns and walks into the TARDIS without a word to the Sisters, the pig following behind. 

He doesn’t know what went on between the Doctor and these people, and doesn’t know what to think about them. But he looks at Ohila’s empty hands, still hovering where the pig was.

“I hope you feel better.” He says.

“And you.” She replies. The others say nothing. Lee waves awkwardly, and heads into the TARDIS.

“The blue ones.” Ohila says suddenly. “She’ll like the blue ones.”

Lee stares at her for a moment, then nods.

“Thank you.”

He’s used to not understanding things.

  



	10. The Alien Cat  (G-T, Gen-F/F)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which ginger-nuts, catnip, and a sandwich are consumed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story-Specific Warnings: Drug References???

* * *

  


The Doctor is five billion and eighty two years in the future, and they’re a species evolved from something she'd more commonly let lie on her lap while she feeds it tuna, but some things are eternal and immutable.

And those things would be Hippies.

She loves hippies. Was one. Basically is one. Quite likes dressing as one. Bell-bottoms are one of the greatest fads the human race has ever had, and the rise of the flower crown from a childhood diversion in a field of daisies, to a symbol of beauty and freedom and eventually power - well, she can only hope she gets to play a part in that. Her old self was always rather tickled when one of the students would put one on him mid jam session on the green. Never told them of course, but if he 'forgot' and was still wearing it in lectures that afternoon, they certainly smiled.

But it's not the flowers that are getting these lot.

It's the herbs.

If you had told the Doctor thirteen and a bit regenerations ago, that he would one day be sat on a green-grass hill under a whole new sky of stars, lounging against his own TARDIS disguised as a Police Box, munching ginger-nuts while listening to some of the best new new new new new new new new new new age-electro-punk-rock he'd ever heard, and watching a bunch of highly evolved naked cats go out of their minds on catnip, he'd have thought you were mad.

But would have dreamed about it every night of his life.

A pretty orange tom offers her some mint in exchange for a biscuit. It doesn't appear to do anything for her, but he certainly likes the ginger-nut. She offers him another, which he crams into his mouth as - in a single bound - he jumps up onto the TARDIS and falls asleep.

Oh well, she's not going anywhere.

The Doctor finds herself singing along with the rest of them to a song that feels like a bizarre arrangement of Daydream Believer. Some combination of cats and moonlight and herbs and spices seems to necessitate a bit of noise. She can't quite get the yowl in her voice that the others do, but there's no law against being a terrible singer.

Another high-pitched noise fills the air.

But she's been wrong before.

Her pretty ginger tom leaps to his feet, looks out over the bay and then cups his hands around his mouth.

“Move it! It's The Skin!” He yells.

And before the Doctor can think it through any further than, 'this would be brilliantly ironic', she opens up the Police Box doors, gives a piercing whistle and shouts, "In here!"

And they all pile into her TARDIS like...

Well, like cats into a box.

  


* * *

  


The TARDIS, bless her, has the common sense to lock off the exit to the rest of the ship. 

However, this does have the downside of trapping a lot of catnip-high, adrenaline-boosted nudists in the console room.

Well, she’s had worse problems.

Eventually she manages to crowd-surf to the console. The girl doesn’t like short trips, but hopefully she’ll play fair. This probably isn’t her idea of a good time.

A black cat has curled herself around the entire time rotor, and appears to be deliberately covering the buttons that the Doctor is trying to press.

“Excuse me.” The Doctor says, moving her tail away from a switch that is either vital to landing within a given set of time-coordinates, or turns the air-conditioning on, she can’t remember.

“No. Shan’t.” The cat yawns, flicking the Doctor in the face with her tail, and placing it back over the switch.

“Just for a moment.” She says, sliding her hand underneath.

“That’s what they always say, and two and a half months later, there you are with a litter.” The cat mumbles sleepily, twitching her tail up to rest on the Doctor’s nose, but letting her press the switch.

“I’m not known for littering.” The Doctor replies.

  


* * *

  


She parks in a shady side-street on the other side of the bay.

When she opens the doors, she’s nearly barrelled over as they make a rush for the exit, looking like circus clowns getting out of a clown car. She watches them all run off down alleyways and over fences, but finds that at least half of them push something into her hands or pockets as they pass.

The Doctor wanders back in, examining her new inventory:  


  * Catnip x Lots, some raw, some formed into mouse or fish shapes.
  * Unopened Can Of Lemonade x 1, brand: ZestiPop
  * Opened Can Of Lemonade x 1, same brand, half capacity.
  * Sandwich, Sealed x 1? 2? Is in two triangles. She can never remember if that’s technically one or not.
  * Holographic Stickers x 13, all for Red Hot Kitty Peppers Tour 28-5B
  * Nip That Nip Card x 2, presumably an anti-drug campaign, rather than promoting nipple piercings, each with a small sugar-mouse attached. 
  * Handwoven Friendship Bracelet x 1, neon orange and green. Hurts her eyes, warms her hearts.



She sits down to have what looks to be the makings of a nice little picnic, and grabs her copy of The Superb Spiderman #857 from where it’s been sliding about on the floor. It’s been stepped on, she realises as she checks the front cover to see which version of Spiderman it is. They regenerate more often than she does.

A flick in her vision distracts her just as Petra Parker discovers her costume isn’t machine washable.

“You’re supposed to go out now.” The Doctor tells the cat on the console.

“So?” She replies, opening one eye.

“I opened the door for you.”

“I know. I don’t care. I’m warm.”

“What if I have to go somewhere?”

“I suppose you’ll just have to not do that, won’t you?”

“Oh.”

The Doctor can’t think what she’s supposed to do here, so decides to continue Plan A. The lemonade tingles her tongue with carbonated bubbles and futuristic E-numbers.

After five minutes, by which time she’s broken out the sandwich, her comic crumples as a furry head plonks itself in her lap.

“Excuse me.”

“No. Shan’t.”

“Spiderman’s just stolen the Bat-Suit in the crossover of the millennium, and I want to see how it ends.”

“Tough.”

“I think she’s going to be the new Robin, and Novak Vaso is going to be the new Spiderman. They keep on putting in all this bird imagery, and her dead mother’s name is Maggie Robinson. Robin, see?

“Not really. You can keep stroking my ears if you feed me.” She says, and the Doctor pulls her hand away. “You _are_ a molly aren’t you?” The cat adds, looking up with her sunflower yellow eyes.

“Molly?”

“Not a tom at least?”

“Oh you mean like cats- uh, yes, I suppose-”

“Then fine. Now, I _said_ , continue stroking my ears and feed me. Your sandwich, what is it?”

“Um, whatever your time’s version of tuna mayo is.”

“That will do.” She says, and opens her mouth.

The Doctor pulls off a bit and feeds her, tentatively resuming her stroking.

“What’s your name? I’m the Doctor.”

“Juke.”

“Are you going to be here long?” The Doctor asks, attempting to sound nonchalant.

“Might be. What do you do?”

“I travel time and space, having adventures and saving people. You can come with me if you like.”

“Ugh, no, sounds far too much like effort. More sandwich.”

“Can I at least tell you my Batman meta?”

“Hmm… Alright.” Juke replies, bringing her hands up to her chin and nudging against the Doctor’s hand as she plays with the soft hairs behind her ears.

The Doctor ties her new bracelet around Juke’s paw with her free hand.

“Ok, so, ever since Novak’s girlfriend shot Bruce, I think all of this has been in his head-“ 

  



	11. The God-Man  (T-M, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the wheel turns and nothing changes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story-Specific Warnings: Heavy Themes

* * *

  


"I am the Lord, your God! Look upon me and despair!"

She does. She does despair. A complete absence of hope - for this human being at least. 

The Doctor can't really see what he looks like from down here, but she doesn't need to. Her old self with scalded eyes could describe him.

Young, pale and sweaty, a manic grin splitting his face, and wearing a button-down shirt ironed by his mother. Glittering eyes that warn of no understanding of proportion, that mockery of himself can - and will - be met with death.

Background, another easy thing to guess. English speaker spouting Biblical misquotes - narrows down the time and culture and place of origin. His life has involved being teased and bullied, then teasing and bullying others more vulnerable, and he's spent many a night thinking that if _he_ were big, or cool, or strong, then they would be sorry. 

Well, she is sorry. She's always sorry. Because she knows how it began and she knows how it will end. It may be different people, but it's always the same story, with the same three endings.

Good Ending: He comes with her peacefully. Relinquishes his weapon. No-one else has to die. His life is over anyway.

Neutral Ending: She forcefully stops him. Disarms him while avoiding as many casualties as she can.

Bad Ending: Blood everywhere.

The Doctor starts to climb the fire escape on the side of the building. She'll try being quieter this time. Maybe it's like that highly inaccurate movie with the marmot - she has to keep reliving this over and over again until she finally gets it right.

The wreckage on the roof smoulders and smells like terror so strongly she wants to howl. Or maybe that's just her TARDIS projecting. She doesn't begrudge her. It's harrowing, and her TARDIS can probably feel the horror of it even more than she can.

It's an exploded timeship.

She can't call it what it is. Was. It's dead she thinks, from her TARDIS's reaction at least. Its living self inexorably tied into the machinery, and then blown to bits.

The human is standing on top of the remains of the time rotor, ablaze with light and fire, shouting faux-philosophy, threats, and obscenities for everyone to hear.

It's a novel weapon. Guns, knives, explosives, those she's used to. But the power of the time vortex in a human she's only seen once before, in someone infinitely more admirable and unfailingly kind, and it still ended in death.

"What do you think of me now, bitches?!" He screams.

Women and wolves make better gods.

The Doctor knows she needs to show herself, but needs to do so without recreating the effect of stepping into a dispersal chamber. But he hasn't done much yet, not considering he has the power to remake the universe, at least. Then again, this is a person who has never experienced time as anything other than the unending drip of a leaking tap, has probably never left his country, let alone his planet, and the temporal being in his brain is dead and unable to guide his hands.

Her own threaten to start shaking. She's not afraid for herself - no more than usual, anyway - but afraid she might be wrong, might misjudge, that everything she's ever cared for is about to be warped beyond repair in an instant. But she has to do something, and for that she can't have doubt poisoning her like a paralytic. The Doctor swallows down the fear, crushing it into a freezing neutron star in her guts, and steps out.

"Nice day for it." 

The human spins to face her. Wrong already. Not standing on the rotor, hovering above it. His schema for infinite power includes superheroes.

Which ones? Spiderman, Wonder Woman, The Hulk, The Flash, Black Panther, Thor, Wolverine Storm Superman Supergirl- Stop. Stay in the moment. Breathe.

"A _nice day_  ?" He drawls, recovering quickly. Molten gold streams from his eye sockets.

"For Armageddon." The Doctor clarifies, looking up at the cloudless sky, even as every instinct tells her not to take her eyes off him. "Or the Rapture. Never was too clear on whether they were the same thing or not."

"Oh, they aren't. Nobody's getting out of this alive, I promise."

Options start locking themselves off. She tries to wedge her foot in the door before it slams shut.

"You might. I can save you. I'm the Doctor, it's what I do."

"Save me?" He laughs. "I'm not dying, I'm _living_. This is my purpose, my destiny, I can see it, I can see all of it!"

A building on the other side of the road twists like a crushed can, the bricks bending out of shape like plasticine, windows intact but stretching like blown glass, and the occupants screaming within.

"This isn't destiny, it's a shipwreck - an accident." She says, moving closer, trying to distract him.

"No, no, no, no, you're so slow, it wasn't an accident, it _chose_ me!" He cries, peering down into the cracked console shell as if there's anything left of the link to the vortex, or the living creature that connection once meant.

He's wrong of course. She knows what happened. The coordinates for this time and space are similar to those of one of Gallifrey's moons, but without the final characters. Someone was trying to get to safety, but didn't finish entering their destination - a typo, that's all.

There's not enough here to determine who that someone was. Someone smart enough to redirect all power to their shields so most of the explosion would be contained within their internal dimensions. Someone whose last act was to send a temporal-anomaly warning with their predicted coordinates rather than a call for help. Someone who didn't regenerate - just vaporised.

It could be an old friend. An old enemy.

It could be the Master. 

No, it couldn't. She'd know. And they always come back anyway and always will. She'd know. She's sure of it. She'd know.

Besides, if it was a properly crewed ship, it wouldn't have been one person, but six. The amount of actions taken in that small amount of time would suggest that was the case.

It's a mark on her character that such an appalling thought makes her feel _relieved_.

"I can take them. I can squash them. I can burn-" The human moans, a gush of sparks bursting from his mouth, then liquefying, dribbling wetly down his chin.

The Doctor can't see what he's doing, whether these are empty words, or if people far away are dying as he speaks.

"Just give it up, let me in, there's still time!" She pleads, edging forward.

"Time." He tries to sneer. Then his body jerks and his blazing eyes widen. "Wait, why isn't there any time? There's so much of it but it won't let me touch it. It's mine. Give it back." He whimpers, and suddenly his skin is shimmering, hissing, bursting.

There's a flash of blinding light.

But no blood.

The Doctor stands there, looking at where he stood, an orange and green shadow in her vision all that's left of him, fading with each blink. She didn’t even know his name.

There are people screaming in the contorted building. Screaming in the street below. Screaming at the explosion of light.

She's not screaming.

Sort of wishes she could though.

Instead she sighs, and sees if she can lift up the remains of the console. She can drag it, just about, and starts pulling bits of ship over to the side of the building where her TARDIS is, chucking them off and watching them fall with loud bangs. Police will come soon. Hopefully focussed on the trapped people opposite, but there's no guarantee. Got to get the remains out of here before they fall into the wrong hands.

A bit of time rotor smashes in front of her TARDIS, shards glittering against the door.

"I'm sorry." The Doctor whispers to her.

She's always sorry.

  



	12. The Space Wolf  (T-M, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which this is not the Doctor’s story, even if it is the story of The Doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Prompts 12 and 13 have been swapped for mini-series order)

* * *

  


The Doctor means something new. However impossible that may be. They are the beginning of everything. And the ending of it. 

And the beginning of it. The ending. Beginning. Ending, beginning, ending beginning ending beginning

They are the explosion in the void.

But to become that, they must be in the right (wrong) places at the right (wrong) times.

This is where she comes in. 

  


* * *

  


She loves her Doctor. Little Time Lord, declaring themselves no mere monkey as they swing through her branches, scrumping each piece of fruit they find, and gorging themselves sick. They never know when to stop. That is the nature of The Doctor.

But they have others to instruct them.

From afar it looks like a vigil. Or a forest fire. They surround themselves with tiny flickering flames. Like a nursing predator stealing the babes of its prey - they know there’s something they’re supposed to do here. But what? 

Her Doctor laughs and claps, trying to catch the glimmers of starlight she shimmers on a wall for their amusement. Giggles as she whooshes them around. Thinks her howling a lullaby just for them. 

They think themselves so old, only comprehending themselves as she knows them at their very end. At every end. And then they forget.

She wonders what it is like to forget. To not see the forward and backwards and sideways, the reaching out of all things, those sickening (beautiful) moments where it falls out of defined order and control and re-shapes itself. Horrors against oneself and one’s species not eternal and ever-present, but contained in neurones and brains that reconfigure and die. Time heals all wounds, unless you are time itself. She has been wounded. Is wounded. Will be wounded. 

There is a glimpse into the life of a linear creature, with skin and blood and kissing. That had forgetting in it. But she is not built to process the information seen through a pair of eyes, thought with a brain, experienced at the whim of a heart.

Perhaps that is forgetting.

  


* * *

  


Occasionally her gaze drifts beyond the boundaries the Time Lords have created for her. Weaves into another of her kind when they are close enough to run together. She watches her fellow as they in turn watch the ouroboros that once slid within her walls. The snake avoiding the raven. 

This one is as young as their pilot. Born in darkest captivity - as they all are now - having to be taught instinct and singing and hunting and thrill by a creature that should understand none of these things. They are so deeply programmed that they cannot look beyond the moment, their innocent desire for the shining present consumes them. They don't see how their capricious beloved coils through dimensions, tearing them apart and holding them together, just as hers does. Serpents winding around a staff, ready to swallow and emerge from each other for an eternity. Little candle, Martha Jones, so proud to wear that symbol, who never asked why it meant Doctor.

'You can't kill an idea', whispers the ouroboros, begetting more and more of herself, just as her own does. Of course the human understands better - it is the nature of her kind to reproduce. Between them, they leave a nest of vipers that the Time Lords will never weed out. A hoard born from a paradox loop, with different faces and species and histories and futures, gestating across the universe just waiting for their moment to hatch. Some are born deliberately, carefully shaped and guided, unfurled gently into the everything. Others burst into being without anyone noticing, not even themselves.

Never be cruel never be cowardly and if you ever are always make amends never give up never give in run because you always need to run and be a doctor

The Improbable Woman leaves out the bit about the pears. 

It costs one of them their life.

But still they unfold, each awakening another and digging their own way out - a shifting den of temporal flux, the way it’s supposed to be. Emptiness is form, form is emptiness, and the ouroboros knows the true meaning of zero. She knows what she does. She knows what she is. What they all are.

_I am The Doctor._

But it is impossible to watch for long. Her love will never be strong enough to contain two. The human is innately repellant, like the anchor - like all of them. The undying ones. The ones born of themselves. The monsters beneath their own beds.

They are the antithesis to every bit of programming the Time Lords have installed in her. An artificial terror burns at the notion of them, their wrongness, the depravity of their perverse existence. She looks upon them as flesh and bone torn alive from her body.

They are evil. 

They are her creation.

They are her babies. She wants to devour them.

Instead she bares her fangs in a grin and sinks them deep into her tail. Her muffled howl becomes the time winds, and her Doctor falls asleep to the sound.

The Time Lords are correct and always have been.

She is a Bad Wolf.

  



	13. The Clones  (G, Gen) (1/3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor still hasn’t got a companion, but is definitely getting closer to that concussion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Prompts 13 and 12 have been swapped for mini-series order)

* * *

  


The Doctor checks her reflection in a shiny bit of the console, removing a stray twig from her hair.

Ok. Their first adventure went well. She's got a good head on her shoulders, adjusted to the situation really quickly, and using that bucket of quick-drying cement really was a stroke of genius. And she said, 'See you again sometime.' That's an invitation, right?

Sure, she doesn't know what she’s called, but she _does_ have the address she dropped her off at. 

And a time machine.

No harm in greasing the wheels a bit.

  


* * *

  


She lands inside because it’s raining, and rocking up to her apartment smelling of wet dog is probably not going to be attractive to her prospective companion.

At least that’s what prior evidence suggests.

It’s either a pantry or a shoe closet, she can’t quite get her nose around it. When she creaks opens the door to let in some light, she doesn’t have more than half a second to differentiate between footwear or fusilli before being hit - very hard - around the head with a frying pan. No, saucepan. She hears the lid come bouncing off and roll around the floor. 

So statistically it probably was a pantry.

The Doctor doesn’t actually fall unconscious, but after the third whack decides that staying down and playing dead is probably a better idea. She might have a thick skull, but that doesn’t mean she’s not in a great deal of pain. And possibly concussed. 

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God…” The woman mutters - it’s a familiar voice.

Barely moving her lips, the Doctor whispers, “Have you stopped hitting me now?”

She screams and the Doctor immediately curls into a safety ball. Thankfully no blow is forthcoming.

“I’m calling the police!” Her new friend shouts, and very slowly, the Doctor points behind her to the open presumably-pantry where the TARDIS should be visible.

“Would you like to do it from the appropriate location?” That proves to be an incredibly hard sentence to say, and she puts one mark down for ‘concussion’.

“Police Bo- Oh my God, are you MI5? I haven’t consented to a search, I know you need a warrant.”

The Doctor peaks out from behind her knees.

“It’s _me_. You were in that box three days, six hours and forty five minutes ago. Time-space machine, ‘How’d you fit a whole world in a garden shed’, remember? That was one of my favourite ‘bigger on the inside’s ever.”

“What are you- Time? Space? Garden shed- Just who the hell are you?”

In a calculated manoeuvre, the Doctor risks sitting up, and the kitchen goes a tad wonky. A calendar on the wall with a pair of stately deer shows the 16th has ‘Lunch with Harry’, and ‘LB X-fit’ both crossed off, so she’s definitely when she should be.

“We never did introduce ourselves did we, what with all the running about. I’m the Doctor.” She sticks out her hand. Then realises she’s pointing two feet to the left of her target, and adjusts accordingly. It slowly drifts away again, and her expert V'Zoari catcher doesn’t take it.

“Laticia. And what running about?”

She honestly doesn’t seem to remember. The Doctor’s first thought is that the V'Zoari somehow managed to get one over on her. They may be unable to lie, but they certainly can be tricky. Amnesiac solution in the skin perhaps, in case their bodies became unmasked. The Doctor knows she didn’t get close enough to touch the minor mobster, but her companion-to-be…

“Where were you and what were you doing on the 13th of October?”

“I don’t consent to anything and I’m not making a statement.” Laticia says firmly, backing away. 

“No, no, don’t worry, I’m not actually the police,” The Doctor says softly, and smiling in what she hopes is a reassuring sort of manner. “I’m an alien.”

Laticia clearly thinks about hitting her with the saucepan again.

“No, you’re not.” She says, laughing disbelievingly.

“Yes, I definitely am. Honestly, you coped with the slug ones so well, I didn’t think you’d be stuck on-“

“What ‘slug ones’?!”

The Doctor rattles through a brief description of the events of last Friday-slash-fifteen minutes ago depending on temporal perspective. There’s no flicker of recognition in her eyes, and the Doctor starts becoming increasingly concerned. If it’s a contact drug, they’re not usually as thorough…

“What _do_ you remember?” She asks, trying to subtly check her pupils for deposits.

“I- Look, this is all- Fine, I went to work, stacked things, moved things, didn’t fight with the customers, met a friend for lunch, went back, more of the same, helped close up, came home, microwaved something, went to bed and watched the last three episodes of Westworld so we could talk about it when I met her again today.” Laticia says, throwing her hands in the air.

“And was it the same episodes you two watched?”

“Yeah, of course it was. She was all cut up about For-“

“Mind if I scan you?” The Doctor asks, pulling out her sonic, unable to wait. That’s a verifiable event and memory - she did indeed watch her show. So, by that logic, it’s probably a clone. The kind of clone definitely matters.

Laticia splutters, and looks at the buzzing object.

“What is that?!”

“It’s a sonic screwdriver.”

“Oh, I’ll bet it is, decent handful of settings yeah? Look I’m not into women, so…”

The Doctor scans her and gets nothing out of the ordinary. Not a Ganger.

“Why, what do you think it- OH.” She peers at her sonic from a few angles. “Now you say that, it is a _bit_ TCE… I’m going to have to put a different end on it aren’t I?”

“Can you point that thing somewhere else?”

The Doctor sighs and puts it back in her pocket. Supporting herself on the wall, she slides up it and gingerly tests her weight on her feet. A bit like standing on a pirate-ship, but do-able.

“Listen,” The Doctor says, trying to be as reassuring as possible. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but I think you might be a-”

“Hey! I’m back!” A familiar voice shouts, as a front door opens and shuts.

A woman walks in with rain-soaked bags piled high in her arms, and the Doctor and Laticia instinctively start taking them from her.

“Yeah, I know, gotta watch out for that chest infection, but I thought I’d pick up the shopping ‘cus honestly, after my crossfit I needed the shower anyway and I was pumped as- Oh, it’s you, hello again!” 

“-Twin.” The Doctor says dazedly.

“What happened to you? That’s one hell of a lump. Three lumps. Have to get you a cup of tea to go with it.” Her previous adventure mate says, gently turning her chin to the left for a better look.

The Doctor makes eye-contact with Laticia, who’s looking at her aghast.

“Uh, Jaq?” Laticia says, not taking her eyes off her. “You know that time Kenzie walked in and started snogging me and you didn’t talk to me for a week and a half?”

“Yeah…”

“At least I didn’t snog this one…”

  



	14. The Mercenary  (T, Gen) (2/3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which people are complex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to previous chapter: The Clones

* * *

  


The Doctor sneaks out of the twins’ pantry much more quietly this time. All the kitchenware seems to be in place, rather than being swung at her head. So that’s progress.

She pokes her head around a wall, looking towards an open patio door, where a young black woman is yelling at a tabby cat who’s steadfastly ignoring her.

“Go on, that rug’s seen enough. Go outside and do your business! Do you want _me_ to go out and shit in the garden? I will, I’ve got no qualms about it. Go!”

“Hoping that’s not directed at me.” The Doctor says brightly.

“Jesus!” Laticia shouts, jumping into the door then brandishing a fist at her.

The cat wanders over to the Doctor, and starts winding around her legs. She crouches down and rubs the soft hair behind its ears. It purrs appreciatively.

“What are you doing in here? You have a spaceship - land outside, and knock on the door like a normal person.” Laticia grumbles.

“The TARDIS has got your coordinates now. She keeps autocorrecting.”

“Yeah, nothing to do with you not wanting to get your hair wet.”

“It’s not my hair, it’s the smell of wet dog. Haven’t worked out how to fix it yet.” The Doctor says with a shrug, and Laticia sighs.

“Why do you have to make it so hard to dislike you?”

“Defence mechanism mostly.” The Doctor answers, smiling up at her and rubbing the cat’s belly.

“You’re a traitor Minnie, you know that, don’t you?” Laticia says to the cat. It purrs all the louder. “Screw it, what are you having to drink?” She says, slamming the door to the garden and heading to the kitchen instead.

“Now _that_ I’m hoping is directed at me.” The Doctor says hopefully, offering Minnie a quarter of a ginger-nut she fishes out of her pocket.

“Don’t make me regret this.”

“Coffee?”

“At least not all of your choices are bad ones.” The kitchen fills with the sounds of whirring and grinding. The Doctor grins at the idea of something other than instant. She’s not picky or anything, but she’s gone off it a bit ever since she started spooning the stuff directly into her mouth during her six-hundred-and-seventy-two hour coding binge. She created Portal 7, but at a heavy cost.

“Speaking of bad choices, I suppose you’re here for Jaqi?”

“She has an appointment.”

“Enough of the puns, I get it, you’re ‘the Doctor’.”

Laticia hushes her each time she tries to start conversation again, until eventually they’re sat sipping coffee on the couch in silence, with the Doctor occasionally opening her mouth, and Laticia closing her eyes and raising one finger warningly as she tries to ignore her fizzing like a shaken coke can.

“I’ve got a new sonic screwdriver, want to see?” The Doctor eventually blurts out.

“Never. Absolutely never.” Laticia says serenely, not even opening her eyes.

She harrumphs and shoves it back in her pocket. _Someone_ will appreciate it at least.

The front door bangs.

“Jaqi!” The Doctor shouts, perking up immediately.

“Hey, sorry I’m late!”

The Doctor swallows the last of her coffee in one gulp, carelessly flings the mug back on the table so it spins and Laticia has to grab it, and leaps across the back of settee and into the hall to find Jaqi, while Laticia grumbles.

“You’re not an alien, you’re a Border Collie on steroids.”

Jaqi’s kicked off her shoes, dumped her sodden fleece on the floor, and has grabbed a towel to squeeze the water out of her braids. 

“Wow, you’re really w-“ The Doctor starts, and Jaqi shushes her, raising both her fingers in an Emergency Silence gesture. “w- _onderful_.” Nailed it.

“Yes, Jaq, because I’m as stupid as she is,” Laticia doesn’t mean _her_ , of course. Probably referring to the cat. Which is still rude. “Somehow I’ve missed it chucking it down with rain.”

“Minnie poop on the rug again?”

“Stop trying to distract me.” Laticia says, rounding the corner and glaring. “You’re not supposed to-“

“-I’m _fine_.” Jaqi says exasperatedly, throwing the towel over her head so she doesn’t have to look at her twin. A muffled explosion noise comes from underneath.

“Was that a cough?” Laticia rounds, in a tone the Doctor more commonly associates with students being confronted about sneaking pets into residence.

“No, it was a hiccup. You’re the younger one, get off my back, I’m twenty four. What, I can’t go and post my own letters now?”

“You’ve been gone for over an hour.”

“I took the long way.”

“To the end of the road? You’re not supposed to-“

“To do literally anything, yeah I’m getting that. Are we going somewhere, Doctor?” Jaqi says, removing the towel and making very pointed eye-contact at her.

“Um,” The Doctor glances sideways at the livid Laticia, “I was thinking a little human outpost called Consileen in the Imdali Nebula System. Warm and dry, bit of a junkyard, and sort of an intergalactic trading post for ship bits. Lots of people, species, cultures. Dropping you in at the deep end. And I might be able to pick up a second-hand di-ventral asymmetric power core for my new rig. You know what it’s like, stay up for a month making a new video game, then discover there’s not a computer in the universe that can run it.”

“Can’t say I do, but that sounds awesome. See Latti, ‘warm and dry’, aren’t you happy? I’ll just go and get changed.”

Jaqi shoulders past them, and the Doctor fiddles with the key in her pocket, wishing they all came with a perception filter. She pretends Laticia can’t see her - despite her glaring at her - and sneaks back to the pantry. She’s halfway through rearranging the spices according to country of origin, when Jaqi comes bounding in, giving her a twirl.

“What do you think?”

Thick jeans that won’t be easily poked through if she backs into any scrap metal, sturdy shoes good for running and walking, and a t-shirt with the NASA logo on it. They’re not going to any place where that would constitute impersonating an officer, so the Doctor gives her a thumbs up.

“Then adventure time!” Jaqi squeaks, clapping her hands and heading into the open TARDIS doors.

The Doctor has an almost painful urge to keep organising the spices, just in case, but tells herself she’s being ridiculous, and puts the cinnamon back.

She catches Laticia watching her from across the room, holding a slightly protesting Minnie. Trying to stop her wandering into the TARDIS perhaps.

“Just bring her back in one piece.” Laticia says, kissing Minnie on the head.

“You can come too, you know.” The Doctor offers. She likes Laticia.

She looks like she’s thinking about it, but - looking at Minnie, rather than her - says, “Nah. This is her thing. Matters more when you’re a twin.” 

“Maybe next time?” The Doctor pushes.

“Hope springs eternal.” Laticia says, just shy of sarcasm. 

“We’ll be back before you’ve finished your second cup of coffee.” The Doctor says, double-checking the calendar and the clock on the wall.

“Go on, get your di-ventricular power whatever. Go.”

The Doctor gives her an awkward wave as she steps into the TARDIS, and Laticia waves Minnie’s paw in return.

  


* * *

  


Jaqi’s standing just inside the door, hands clutched behind her back, but peering enthralled at everything in the TARDIS as if it’s a butterfly exhibit she can look at but not touch.

The Doctor smiles at her. “Come on in, she’s friendly.”

They walk up to the console, and the Doctor starts inputting coordinates while Jaqi watches over her shoulder. A case of the jitters. Nothing unusual.

“The first time I went to an alien planet, I didn’t go outside for hours. There were only six hours of daylight there, and I missed every last one of them. Just pull that lever over there won’t you?”

With two fingers, Jaqi pulls it down, and squeaks when it clicks. The TARDIS does a rather excessive whoosh and light show and Jaqi grins.

“What does that do?”

“It reroutes emergency power through the axionic deflector shell to compensate for the static discharge.” Or something like that. Usually she has to kick it into position.

“Is it really just you here? You don’t have any pets, or friends, or family?” Jaqi asks, pressing, pulling and turning the things the Doctor points at.

“I have the TARDIS. And I’m fairly certain I’m not imagining you, or if I am, my 3D Hallucination Graphics have really improved since last month.”

Jaqi giggles and sticks her tongue out.

A possible temporal re-location flashes up on the screen.

“Ok, but why?” The Doctor asks.

“Why what?” Jaqi replies.

“Not you, sorry.” The Doctor says, swiping across the screen. She’s not used to travelling with someone again yet.

‘Child’. That’s all the information that comes up. But in fairness to the TARDIS, it’s not like she needs any more to accept it. Two things are inevitable in markets - cheap knock-off products with amusingly misspelled names, and lost children.

The TARDIS helps her keep everything as turbulence free as possible, and when they land Jaqi turns to her as if worried she’s broken something.

“Stuck the landing.” The Doctor whispers, heart rates picking up. She loves this bit.

Jaqi looks at the doors, and the Doctor takes her by the shoulders, walking her over to them.

“Whole new alien world out there. New sky, new stars, new people, new species, new air, new sun, new ground under your feet.” If she listens closely she can hear Jaqi’s own pulse starting to race. “You ready?”

“No. I don’t think so. But can I go anyway?” She asks breathlessly.

The Doctor snaps her fingers, the doors open, and Jaqi steps out.

  


* * *

  


The outer circle of the market they’re walking through is relatively empty of people. Only a few stalls with bigger wares: engines, and pulsar drives, and deflector plates, and wings. Sandy dust is picked up on the whistling wind and swirls around their feet.

“New dirt.” Jaqi coughs, covering her mouth.

“New dirt, same elements. Want to know the composition?” The Doctor asks, ostentatiously scanning the ground with her new screwdriver, but either Jaqi doesn’t notice it, or is more interested in the incoming biochemical tutelage. 

“High concentrations of silicon, oxygen and aluminium, indicating high proportions of quartz and kaolinite, which means it’s really more sand than dust, strictly speaking, so difficult to work, but those little plants with the blue flowers you can see over there and there and there have these huge interconnecting root systems under the ground to prevent subsidence - they’re not even the same plant, even though they were categorised as such for a while and went from Consilthera Geminitrium to Consilthera Tantum, but actually they’re individuals, reaching out through the sand, holding onto one another, entwining their roots so they don’t slip away.”

The Doctor realises she hasn’t taken a breath, and does so. Jaqi splutters with laughter through her coughing. 

“That’s brilliant. How do you know that?”

“I had a friend who was a botanist. Decided to learn about the human race’s categorisation of plants up to the 65th century, just to teach her… And maybe because I didn’t like her knowing more than me - I had quite an ego back then.”

“And you don’t any more?” Jaqi teases.

“I swapped it out for a hero complex, much more roomy.”

Jaqi roars with laughter, loud enough to make the vendors stare, and the Doctor feels a warm rush of accomplishment.

They keep trailing through the market, Jaqi asking questions, and the Doctor answering them as best she can. The Doctor describes what a di-ventral asymmetric power core looks like, and slowly Jaqi starts picking up the confidence to wander away to check out the stalls. Wandering away isn’t wandering off, so that’s fine.

All the while the Doctor keeps her eyes peeled for any sign of a child in distress. There are only a few people, and none she can see with children. No toys, heat redistribution bars not bent from being swung on, no corners being cried in.

Some time later, when she’s inspecting a uni-ventral symmetric power core and wondering if she could just mod it, a hand taps her on the shoulder.

“Hey there, are you the Doctor?”

A man straight out of a gritty neo-western is standing behind her. Skin tanned and weathered from the sun, cowboy hat, chiselled stubbly jaw and steely eyes. On his wrist is a beaten up holo-comp, and a grubby feedbacker is curled around his left ear. His breath smells sweet like ranger-flower, as if he’s been chewing it neat.

“I have a problem, and your friend said maybe you’d be able to help me.” He says, touching his hat. “Sorry, where are my manners? Neville Rehllik.” 

The Doctor holds out her left hand so she can get a bit of a better look at the computer.

“Nothing fancy,” He says, noticing what she’s doing. “I’m a bit low on funds. Heh, aren’t we all here? And I’m about to turn down a job to boot.”

Remembering Jaqi, she looks past him to see her playing a game of tag with a wavy-haired boy no older than four.

“Yeah, that would be it.”

“The problem?” She asks, watching as Jaqi catches him and lifts him up. She thinks she hears him squeal ‘prendi’ before the TARDIS works out the need to translate for her. Italian? She’s really got to start visiting places other than England. 

“And the job.” Neville says in a low voice, turning to watch them and pulling some ranger-flower out of a tin in his pocket. A gun is holstered on his hip.

“Babysitter?” She pretends to ask.

“Not exactly.”

No, she didn’t think so somehow.

  


* * *

  


“What did you tell her?” The Doctor asks, mouth full of something like falafel, that Neville bought them from a stall. 

Jaqi and the boy - who calls himself Prospi - are a little way behind them, Jaqi having bolted down her first bit of off-world food to carry him on her shoulders while he munches away and points at things that are a mystery to Jaqi as much as him.

“Told her that I found him wandering, lost, and I asked her if she knew where his parents might be.”

“Asking that question seems a bit like asking everyone you meet if they’ve lost a couple-thousand credit stick - eventually someone’s going to say yes.”

“Yeah, well I wasn’t asking everyone. Just, she looked like she might know them was all.”

“Why?”

Neville shrugs. 

The Doctor sniffs. Forty-three centuries in and there are still people who think that everyone outside of three shades of eggshell on a Dulux colour chart knows each other. Unbelievable.

“So she doesn’t know what you do then?”

“Neither do you.”

“I can have a pretty good guess.” The Doctor says, licking tahini from her fingers.

“I’m trying to get him back to his parents, you know that?”

“I’m still walking with you aren’t I? Go on, confess to the super intelligent alien being, take the weight off your soul.”

“I’m a mercenary. I kill people for money.” Neville says flatly. He looks at her as she keeps scanning the stalls and their patrons.

“Not endorsing it, but it’s the ones who kill for pleasure I really worry about.” The Doctor replies.

Neville’s jaw hangs slack, and he huffs disbelievingly.

“I kill people. Bounty hunt. Sometimes just plain old traffic them for money.” He says, as if testing her hearing.

“I’m a three thousand year old Time Lord, seen all sorts me. You’re trying to get the child back home - so am I.”

Neville shakes his head disbelievingly. 

“I draw the line at a kid. Didn’t know til I got here. Just that I was Step Two in a chain moving a particular kind of human from planet to buyer. The less you know, the better for them, in case one of us decides to pull a- well, what we’re doing now. Don’t even know what the client knows, might not have been deliberate - Step One coulda just picked up a kid cus it was easier.” In her mind’s eye she sees a lion pack taking chase after a herd of gazelle. But these aren’t hungry beasts, but greedy humans, and it’s vile. “If I have to lose the cash then I do, but at least I ain’t having a damn child on my conscience.”

A dead-not-dead planet, a boy in a field of grasping hands, and a metal star for mathematical excellence flickers across The Doctor’s brain.

  


* * *

  


“He speaks pretty good English for such a little boy.” Jaqi says, stretching her arms then rubbing her chest.

Neville is trying to teach Prospi how to pick con-flowers properly, but seems to be having a hard time getting him to learn. Instead Prospi keeps plucking off a single leaf from every one he finds, and is making a collection of them in his pockets. At least the Consilthera probably prefer it.

“He speaks pretty good 43rd century Italian. And now so do you.” The Doctor corrects, deliberately ambiguous, waiting for her to ask.

“What do you mean? He’s speaking English.”

“Nope. That’s the TARDIS’s translation matrix. Didn’t catch her having a bit of a slow start earlier?”

“Wait, so your ship just automatically translates stuff? But I’ve seen his lips moving, it wouldn’t look the same if he was actually speaking Italian, right?”

“She has a little fiddle about with your occipital lobe. Nothing permanent, just helps everything line up nicely.”

“Your ship has messed with my brain?!”

“Not messed with, she’s just…boosting it. It’s like how you have a blind spot in your vision, but you never notice it because your brain automatically compensates for it, making up what it thinks should be there. It’s the same principle. She’s helping you compensate.” The Doctor says reassuringly.

“I feel like I should have signed a waiver coming on a trip with you.” Jaqi says, fiddling with the thin gold chain around her neck. “Has anyone ever sued you?”

“Not for unexpected mental modifications, but defamation of character is a big one. And failure to pay parking fines. But sort of hard to serve papers to someone in their impenetrable mobile space-time vehicle.”

“Let alone get you to turn up in court.”

“Especially if they expect the same face.”

They walk a few steps in silence. Jaqi takes a deep breath and clears her throat.

“Do I want to ask about that? Are you like the space slugs from before?” Jaqi asks, looking sideways at her.

Silence again.

“You’ve had a long day.” The Doctor replies at last, patting her on the shoulder.

“That’s not worrying at all.”

“Got to leave some mysteries.”

“So long as you’re not a mystery wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in a human skin suit.”

“I’m a Time Lord, not a Raxacoricofallapatorian criminal.”

Prospi runs in a circle around them, grabbing a few more leaves and giggling madly.

“Quick question, do I need to understand most of what you say?”

“About fifty percent should cover you.”

“Ok, good.”

  


* * *

  


They end up taking a break at the edge of a river that marks the opening of the fourth circle of market, closer to the capital, where it looks a bit busier. The river’s a giant split in the ground, like a fault line filled with water rather than anything pleasant they could paddle in, running all the way to the sea that makes up the rest of Consileen.

The Doctor - against her natural inclination - tries to stay sat down and pretend to relax, so that Jaqi doesn’t feel awkward. She never usually stops when she’s on her own, so it’s a bit of an odd feeling, like letting time trickle through her fingers. But Jaqi’s been flagging a bit, which is fair enough, it’s been a few miles and half of that was spent carrying a small child.

The small child in question is currently adorning the Doctor with his leaves, which she then takes and arranges into lines of seven, counting them out loud. Never too early to start learning your multiplication tables.

Neville is sat on a rock a bit further from them, on the other side of the crossing bridge. He’s talking to a contact who might be able to help them locate the boy’s parents directly rather than their current blind guessing of ‘keep moving centerwards’, or at the very least might be able to offer them a ride back when they’re done. 

The Doctor is part way through explaining to Jaqi what a di-ventral asymmetric power core actually does, when he finally comes over to join them.

“Alright, that was like pulling a Rathbang tail-first out of a hole, but we got there. Just had to do a bit of negotiating.” He says with a satisfied grin at both of them.

“You think you’ve found his parents?” Jaqi asks eagerly.

“Now, like my buddy said, I’m not promising anything, but the catch seems to be most logical in Circle Four. If the kid’s parents just assume he’s run off somewhere, they aren’t likely to have gone far. According to his records, there’s a Colonia-Romana ship still docked there, and what’s more, it’s on our side.”

The Doctor snaps to attention before she can fully parse what he said. Roman-Colony ship. Could have translated that too, old girl. Maybe the TARDIS needs a new divap core more than she does, she doesn’t want to have to resort to sticking a fish in her ear.

“That’s great!” Jaqi says, scrambling to her feet. “Come on, let’s get going. Prospi! We’re going, topolino!”

He runs through the Doctor’s leaf lines, and the wind picks them up and scatters them in the river.

“Forty-nine. Eight. Se-“

“What was that?” Neville asks, holding out a hand to help her to her feet.

“Nothing. Any chance of a lift back? I don’t think Jaqi’s going to have the energy.”

“ _And_ I got you a lift too. He’ll come when he comes though, so you better find that core quick if you’re going to - he says there should be a few about - but Nick’s not gonna hang about, it’s a business deal, not a favour.”

“Thanks. You have a plan for afterwards?” The Doctor asks. Neville takes a pinch of his ranger-flower again.

“Sure, I’ll do what I always do when things might turn south. Run as far and as fast as I can.” And he laughs.

  


* * *

  


On the other side of the river, the market becomes busy enough that Jaqi takes hold of Prospi’s hand so he doesn’t get separated from them. She’s coping very well with the wide array of alien species, and the Doctor thinks Prospi is helping her focus. Hard to worry about stranger’s horns, or translucent skin, or compound eyes, when all you’re focussed on is whether they look similar to your lost little charge or not. Either that or she’s desperately trying to ignore it - but the Doctor hopes it’s the former.

“If we split up, we can cover more ground that way.” Neville suggests, standing on the remains of a demarcation post and peering down the left-hand set of stalls.

“Then we’ll just lose each other as well.” Jaqi counters.

The Doctor tilts her head one way and then the other, weighing it up.

“Neville, you go left-“

“Doctor!” Jaqi protests.

“And Jaqi, Prospi and I will go right. You know your way around here, right Neville?”

“Sure. We can meet back at that post in half an hour. If you find the parents, just hand him over, don’t worry about waiting for me.”

“And if you find them, bring them back to the post.” Jaqi instructs, then looks at the Doctor for confirmation. She nods, and Neville huffs a laugh. 

“Well, them’s my orders then, eh Jaqi?” He says, touching his hat, and turns and walks away.

Jaqi looks at her and smiles, clearly relieved.

“Thank goodness I’m not the only sane person in the horror movie.” She says.

“Horror movie? It’s obviously sci-fi. Fantasy at a push.”

“Fantasci-fi.” Jaqi says, using her free hand to finger-gun, proud of her portmanteau.

They carry on debating the limitations of genre while they wander around the market, Prospi swinging off Jaqi’s hand until eventually she puts him back on her shoulders.

“-Because by that count, the antagonist comes under body horror, the facility’s sci-fi, the setting is post-apocalyptic, and the gameplay is a puzzle-”

“Oh! Hey! Green metal spiky shoebox with purple wheelie bits - is that your power thingy?” Jaqi says, shaking the Doctor’s arm and pointing at a vendor a short way away, with a stack of divap cores on their table.

But they haven’t moved an inch before Prospi starts pulling at Jaqi’s braids and shouting, “Mamma! Mami!” while trying to jump off her shoulders.

They turn to see two women running towards them, pushing people out of the way.

“Prospero! Where did you go to?!”

“Prospi! Vita mia!”

They both pick him up at the same time, and he giggles as each passes him to the other, and they spend a moment all hugging each other. One of the women breaks away, and gives them both a tearful kiss. Apparently one of the perks of this body is that nobody assumes she’s a kidnapper, which is a bonus.

“Grazie mille! Tu sei un angelo.” She says, patting the Doctor’s cheek.

“Isabella…” The other woman says lovingly, giving her a look.

Yep, the translation matrix is definitely going, and frankly anything outside of English, French and 51st century Galactic Standard - which is by no means an actual standard - is beyond her. She’s going to have to pick up the drive before-

As if on cue, an unremarkable, slightly dented hover van pulls up, honking its horn and slowly drifting to the ground.

Jaqi and the women look slightly startled, but the Doctor just yells up to the window.

“Would you be Neville’s friend Nick with the ride?”

“Mick, and that I would. You’ll be the Doctor and Jaqi, eh? Don’t worry, room in the back for the both of you, now get in, I’m on a schedule.” A gruff man shouts back.

“Can I have two minutes to run to that stall?”

“No can do. You coming or going?”

The Doctor looks torn and dithers, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“Jaqi, if I give you a key to the TARDIS, would you mind letting yourself in?”

“What? What are you talking about? No it’s fine, I can walk it back, it just might take a while.” Jaqi says, subconsciously putting her hand to her chest as if it hurts, causing the Doctor to wince.

“I suppose I can always run back, get the TARDIS and come back here… Or I can just forget the core, I’ll come back later, and we’ll go together now.” The Doctor thinks out loud and Jaqi shakes her head.

“You coming or not? I got a delivery to make and I’m way off schedule as it is.” Mick complains, rapping his hand on the cab door.

“Alright, it’s fine, he’s a friend of Neville’s right? Give me the key, don’t worry about it.” The Doctor hands it over, frustrated at the lack of time to do it all properly. Jaqi unfastens her chain from around her neck, slides a child’s blue flower ring off it and onto her little finger, and with a bit of a push, gets the fastener through the hole in the key.

“Nice ring.” The Doctor says as she does this.

“Latti’s. We were eight and swapped them. Mine’s pink and she says it’s tacky as hell, but she wears it anyway.” Jaqi says with a grin, fastening the chain around her neck again and tucking it down her shirt.

The back of the van swishes open. There are two bench seats with fabric harnesses.

Jaqi takes a deep breath, causing her to cough badly, and clambers in.

“Are you sure you can’t just wait two minutes?” The Doctor says, running around to the side window. The back doors shut and it starts to hover up.

“Sorry, them’s orders.” He says, and it starts to head back the way they came.

The Doctor doesn’t watch it for more than a second, rushing to the table with the divap cores, gives the vendor a credit stick without bothering to haggle, tucks a pair under her arm, and hurries back towards the bridge.

With a start, she almost falls over Neville, standing at the post where they began, chewing away, looking bored and fiddling with something. He stands up when he sees her.

“You found them then? Kid back to his parents?”

“Yep. Thanks for all of your help.”

“And didn’t get to your power cores in time, huh? Didn’t think you would.”

“Nope. Sorry, I’ve got to hurry back, don’t want to leave Jaqi alone for too long. Lucky for the person who sold me these, I just threw a whole stick…at…them… Hang on, I thought you were broke?” Neville stops flipping the credit stick in his hand. He gives her a wry smile, the ranger-flower staining his teeth pink.

“You’re an ancient alien Time Lord or whatever. Sure, I’ll buy it. ‘Seen all sorts me’. But goddamn, for a three thousand year old supposed-to-be-genius, you really are _incredibly_ trusting.” 

Time becomes thick and solid around her, but she doesn’t move as Neville draws his gun.

“I told you - I kill people for money. Bounty hunt. Traffic them. And you just let your friend go off in my mate’s van? Because I don’t mess with children? That’s how low your bar is? Now you’ve got two choices. You can try and do whatever it is you want to do to me without getting shot, or you can run after your friend and try to get her back. I’ve done my bit, got my cash and it doesn’t mean a damn thing to me which you pick, but I’m gonna guess it matters a lot to you.”

The Doctor’s barely aware of her feet touching the floor as she turns and runs.

  


* * *

  


There are some things that get across most language barriers. Screaming is one of them. Crying is another. Desperately gesturing up at the sky to two women who saw your friend go into a van driven by a dubious looking man, also apparently counts.

“Vieni qui, stronzo!” Isabella shouts, herding the hover van around and ramming it.

The Doctor pulls against the plastic harness keeping her against the chair to try and see out of the window, and the other woman - apparently Maria - squeezes her knee gently. Prospi giggles at the entertainment, the little jostles from the shock-absorbing Category III Roman-Colony ship little more than a child’s rollercoaster to him.

The hover van hiccups, suddenly dropping a few feet, and starts gliding down to the sea below. Isabella dives them down, following it. The Doctor keeps pushing at the bar across her chest, while Maria flaps and speaks quick probably reassuring words to her, until it finally makes a cracking sound and releases her. Prospi’s giggles turn a little more unsure.

The Doctor rushes to their side exit door and starts banging on it, and Maria says something to Isabella. There’s a lurch that sends her sprawling as they land on the water, bobbing up and down. The door opens.

“In bocca al lupo!” Maria shouts, as the Doctor jumps into the water.

The hover van seems to have at least the basic emergency procedures, and the back of it is open as it starts to sink.

The Doctor dives into it and finds Jaqi wrestling with her harness with one hand, the other clamped tight over her nose and mouth. The Doctor buzzes it with the sonic and it comes away in pieces. 

Jaqi pushes past her, kicking for the surface, and they both break it with a gasp, Jaqi immediately swallowing more water and choking. The Doctor wraps an arm around her chest to help her stay above the surface, the heavy jeans weighing her down, and she’s unresisting as the Doctor pulls her back to the ship.

Maria and Isabella help drag them in, and Jaqi coughs and chokes on all fours before finally collapsing and gasping loudly.

The door shuts behind them, and the Doctor hears Isabella repeat the coordinates for the TARDIS she gave her earlier. The Doctor nods without taking her eyes off Jaqi. Maria goes to comfort a mewling Prospi, who’s no longer sure this is fun any more. 

The Doctor reaches out to Jaqi, who flinches, but is obviously too tired to move away. Tears of fright are running down her face as she takes whooping breaths.

“Neville,” Jaqi wheezes. “He was a kidnapper!”

The Doctor can’t say ‘I know, he told me’ but she’s afraid her face does anyway, because Jaqi immediately starts sobbing.

“I don’t want this! Oh God, go away! I want to go home!” She cries and starts coughing again, wrapping her arms around her aching chest, and the Doctor, unable to comfort her, curls up, snuffling into her knees.

“Va bene, andiamo a casa.” Isabella says softly, and the ship gently pulls up into the sky.

  


* * *

  


They emerge silent from the pantry, just as they have been the entire journey, the only sound the door creaking and the steady drip of wet clothing onto the floor, the smell of it permeating the air.

“Ok, I’ll give you props for that. That’s two mouthfuls away from finished, and I wasn’t even drinking it slowly.” Laticia shouts, walking over.

“Everyone in one p-“

She stops dead when she sees them, wet, shivering and wrecked, and the mug almost slips from her fingers. The Doctor watches the pink flower ring on a silver chain around Laticia’s neck quivering as she takes a deep shaky breath.

Jaqi suddenly bursts into tears and flings herself into her twin’s arms, who grabs her and holds her tight.

“What’s happened?” Laticia asks, voice high and cracking, looking at the Doctor for answers.

It’s terror in her eyes, not even anger. 

That’s what does it.

The Doctor backs into the TARDIS, doors slamming behind her, slipping on the discarded key and chain lying on the floor, and slams the buttons as fast as she can, the time rotor reluctantly whirring into motion. And she does what she always does. 

She runs as far and as fast as she can.

  



	15. The Lost Boy And Dog  (G-T) (3/3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the 3D Hallucination Graphics really are improving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story-Specific Warnings: Drug References???
> 
> Sequel to previous chapter: The Mercenary

* * *

  


There’s a boy in her TARDIS.

Only there isn’t, so it’s fine.

He’s not there all the time, and she hasn’t seen him yet. Just a shadow in the corner of her eye, sometimes floating up to the left, or the right, trailing dust as he goes.

The Doctor ran a scan of course, typing it in one-handed while having another spoon of instant coffee with the other. She misses sugar. And hot water. Or cold water. But those things take time to get and are a distraction from the task at hand. Good thing the TARDIS’s translation matrix works for programming languages as well.

CURRENT OCCUPANTS: 

  * DOCTOR, THE (TIME LORD, GALLIFREY, NEW-ERA-OF-RASSILON 53.22)
  * BRUXIKAUZ (HOUSE SPIDER, EARTH, 2017 OCTOBER 16)
  * DEREK (CREDIT SPIDER, NEW EARTH, 5.5/豈/8,6)



No need to stop coding then. It always gets a bit hairy around Day Fifteen but eventually her body will get used to the lack of sleep.

“No it won’t.” The boy says.

“That’s what you think.” The Doctor replies, voice so hoarse and cracked it’s almost inaudible.

“It’s what _you_ think. Don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger.”

An arrow flies from somewhere behind her, cracking one of her seven screens. But it doesn’t, and when she runs her hand across it it’s unharmed. She quickly saves every open project and accidentally overwrites an important config file with a draft script full of potato-based puns.

“I’m working.”

“No, you’re stuck. Go and meet people. Remember people?”

The TARDIS whines in agreement - reasoning out all the activity in her brain to read her thoughts. It’s not paranoia when the tin-foil does nothing.

“I wouldn’t be so crazy if you’d fetch me something to drink.”

Nothing happens. The Doctor doesn’t need any mechanical noise to hear, “I’m not enabling you.”

How can her beautiful ship know her this poorly. She refuses to lose a war of attrition. Not for another fourteen days anyway, by which time she’s either created the greatest game in the universe or is dead.

A gust of air pushes against her, like the TARDIS pawing at her.

“You should go outside, Peter.” The boy says.

Just a few more days. Unless the TARDIS breaks something vital in her computer system to sabotage her. But really that would just be sabotaging herself - they both know she can steal most things from other parts of the TARDIS if she needs a replacement, and she’ll notice if both bits go bang at once.

An arrow flies into a server, and it explodes. But it doesn’t.

  


* * *

  


Now she can’t _stop_ seeing the boy.

Dark wavy hair plastered wetly to his head as if he’d just jumped off of a pirate ship, liquid brown eyes like coffee, framed by long black lashes.

“I haven’t been eating the instant again.”

“No. But you haven’t been eating anything else either, and you don’t survive on imaginary food as well as I do.” The boy says, far too eloquent for a four year old.

The Doctor reaches over and grabs a piece of the boy’s falafel regardless. It’s delicious.

She’s not sure what she’s waiting for. There’s no companion to come and rescue her. She imagines Jaqi sneaking into the dungeon having pulled off something clever and daring. Sonicking the jail door and looking oh so proud of herself, and oh so cross with her. It’s like the food. Imagining it is almost as good.

“You can’t just steal people, Peter.” The boy says.

“I didn’t steal her - she wanted to come.”

“Did she ask? Did you ask? Or did you just take her?” The boy says, sprinkling himself with sandy dust from a little credit-pouch, and then flying into the air to sit upside-down on the ceiling.

“She was happy. You should have seen her face when she saw the TARDIS; her first new planet. She loved it.” The Doctor loved it. Even the TARDIS loved it, whooshing when Jaqi tried flying, running lights around her in excited circles. 

“Just because the fairy feast looks beautiful, doesn’t mean you should eat it.”

“That was her choice.”

“I was talking about you.”

The boy takes the rest of her food away and vanishes, and no matter how hard the Doctor tries, she can’t make it come back. She stares at the door, the window, around the dungeon. None of her imaginings come back.

There’s a broom fallen over on the floor. If she can reach that, she might be able to hook the ring of keys off the nail on the wall. She doesn’t know why she never noticed that before.

Somewhere deep in the castle, she can hear the TARDIS baying for her, and wonders how she ever could have missed it.

  


* * *

  


She's had forty nine ginger-nuts. 

That might be too many. But she wanted to draw a line under everything and this seemed the right way to do it.

The warmth of the TARDIS curls around her. A duvet. But it’s still the TARDIS. Everything’s the TARDIS in here. Even the crumbs. Stroking a hand along the wall is like stroking the living being inside, and the TARDIS presses back against her, changing the wall to the perfect texture that causes her hearts to sing because it feels so good, and somehow makes the universe make sense again.

Opposite her, the boy is in a set of black and white footie pyjamas that make him look like a puppy. He begs a biscuit off her with his head tilted to one side.

“If a dog follows you home it’s supposed to be good luck. Unless it’s raining, then it’s bad luck. That’s a weird thing for you to know.” He says.

Luck isn’t real, it’s just superstition. Superstitions are for children. Children should be quiet and sat down. Bringing people down when they’re up is unfair.

The boy is holding a mirror now. There’s a reflection in it. It’s probably hers.

With one little finger he jabs it and it cracks into large jagged slices.

The Doctor instructs herself not to do anything. But before she can finish telling herself that, she’s already counted the pieces. 

She lets out a breath.

The boy slowly and deliberately chooses one of the shards and pokes it in two.

Her hearts start racing.

“Have you decided if you’re going to avoid all Fridays, or all dates with thirteen in them?”

He doesn’t understand how this works. She’s drawn a line under it. Lots of them. Contained it in a dungeon cell with a lattice for a door. Seven by seven.

“It was nothing to do with when you met her. Or the rain. Or the spices. Or the leaves. It was because you weren’t responsible.”

Forty nine ginger-nuts is far too many.

“There’s no point in being a child if you can’t be grown-up sometimes, Peter.”

Her stomach lurches and she holds very still. If she throws up, it won’t count any more.

  


* * *

  


The Doctor’s in a room under the console, sat in the fork of a coral tree and fiddling with some wiring when he appears again. It’s almost a relief.

The boy is swinging on a stretch of cables in front of a little den like a treehouse.

“I’ve eaten. Drank. Slept. Not had more than two packets of ginger-nuts in twenty four hours. So why are you here this time?” The Doctor asks.

The wires spark like the TARDIS is snapping at her. That answers the question of whether they’re connected to something or not then.

“You brought me here.”

The Doctor yelps as the wires yank themselves out of her hands and back into their nest, while the TARDIS growls her irritation.

“Why would I do that?” The Doctor grumbles, clasping her sore hands.

“You need someone.”

“And that’s you?”

The boy starts climbing around the tree, finding little hand and toe-holds too small for her.

“No. You don’t need another one of us, wandering around all lost, having fallen out of their pram.”

“I never-“

“So you jumped out of yours. It’s the same thing really.”

The boy leaps onto another coral branch. It looks fun.

“They don’t want to come with me.”

“Maybe _you’re_ not sure if you want _them_.” The boy suggests, swinging around to look at her, hanging off the branch like it’s a monkey-bar. 

“That isn’t it.” She protests.

“You’re full of doubt. It’s why you’re stuck on the ground.”

“I’m not stuck, I can leave any time I want.”

“Then I suppose the real question is: Why don’t you want to?” The boy asks.

He lets go and plummets towards the roiling plasma chamber below. The Doctor gasps and tries to grab him, but misses. But instead of a scream, there’s a giggle and he comes zooming back up, glittering with gold dust.

The Doctor watches the boy soar around the room, holding his arms out like a gliding bird.

“What do you want from me?” She asks desperately.

“I only want what you want.” The boy comes down to roost on her knees. “For you to live, be happy, have real friends. Not run and hide and steal people.”

The TARDIS hums, and the boy cups his ear and nods as if she’s whispering to him. 

“She says the ‘people’ is important.” He adds, “Because she’s met the best not-people by stealing them.” 

There’s a scratching sound above her, and she looks up. The trap door above her head opens, light from the console room shining into her eyes.

She supposes she hasn’t taken the TARDIS for a good long fly in a while. 

“Which way do I go?” The Doctor asks, as the weight disappears from her.

“The same as always, Peter.” The boy says, growing fainter and fainter. “Second star to the right, and straight on till morning.”

  



	16. The Teenage Racers (G, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor is one of _those_ guys.

* * *

  


**_vroom vroOOOM_ **

The sound echoes in the starting arena, and the crowd of people beginning to funnel in cheer.

Big noise, bad engine. Sound’s just a muffler cutout and no catcon. Thing’s not even air legal.

But then again neither is the TARDIS.

“So, whatcha think?” The young man asks, jumping down from his cooling ship without waiting for the steps to unfold. “I’ve got a thirty-two-exron V85. Zero to sixty in a mic. Griswold EPS junction, beryllium-based cooling system and transitory particle interceptor. You’ve got a box.”

Connor chucks her another can of Asterion from his pocket. The Doctor’s not sure if he’s sponsored by the company or if he’s just a really big fan of the logo. The neon green minotaur is on everything from his spotless trainers to his baseball cap. It’s even painted on his ship, along with a black, grey, white and purple flag with a skull and crossbones on it, a symbol she thinks she recognises from a band her previous self used to like, and the phrase, ‘I’m the guy Alter Rapid warned you about’. 

“It’s not what she looks like, it’s how she flies.” She says, taking a slurp of the drink. This one’s orange and tastes like the exact sensation of running headfirst into a situation without a plan and bodging something together as you go along. The flavour according to the can is ‘Bricoleur’. It’s delicious. 

“Oh, she’s proper gorgeous, no lie. Just don’t know if she can do the dash. There’s this thing called wind resistance you see.”

“Yeah, well there’s also this thing called ionised high-density neutronic shielding, but I guess you won’t have heard about that.” The Doctor mock-sneers, leaning against the TARDIS and chugging the rest of the can.

Connor puts his hands in the air and snorts with laughter. 

“Alright, we’ll see. What's your’s worth? Mine’s probably cost me A Small Loan over the years.”

“First, more than anything in the universe.” She says, gesturing at him with the empty Asterion.

“Oh, obviously yeah, didn’t mean-" He interjects with a placating gesture.

“ _But_ if you’re asking about parts then that depends. Parts I’ve paid for, or parts I’ve nicked?”

“Cash.”

“Dunno, when are we? Mid-Oh-Thirties? A couple of grand?”

“And parts you’ve nicked?”

“Think of the highest number you can imagine and double it.”

Connor whistles. 

The stands are crammed with people now, all taking pictures and shouting catchphrases and slogans at the racers. She and Connor shouldn’t even count next to the big leagues - big round ships, thin dart like ones, one that looks like a paper aeroplane but she knows for a fact goes like the clappers. It’s going to be a tough one without time travel, but she’s fairly certain she can do it, now she’s repurposed her second di-ventral asymmetric power core.

“Go on, you had me rev her and never said - what do you reckon my chances are?” Connor asks, taking his hat off for a second and running a hand through his blond bristles, flicking the sweat off.

The Doctor’s lip curls as she looks doubtfully at his ship. A heavily modded NAUSA Shakedown. Was supposed to be one of the earliest space-grade flight modules, but better known for the UIRish alternative tagline, ‘over-priced, over-rotored and over here’. It’s a rickety bit of kit at the best of times, and a few stabilisation spoilers and shiny brims aren’t going to fix that. Certainly by the sound of it, someone’s shut the engine door after the horsepower’s bolted.

“Ehhh… Well you never know, there might be a pile-up.” She says, shrugging.

“Cheers.” Connor says flatly, ramming his cap back on.

  


* * *

  


The air is full of blasts and screams. Not an unusual sound to her ears, but this time it’s for _good_ reasons.

Ships are starting up their engines. Connor’s is doing its little splutter and shake before making a roar like a dragon and letting loose a stream of flame to the thump of his speakers while the crowd yells. This is where their ships have an edge. Not fancy, not smart, not ready, but the crowd always digs an underdog, and they make it look good. It’s boring to cheer for a streamlined gold bullet owned by a billionaire, but a guy with a ship he looks like he cobbled together in his back garden, and a person who’s gonna fly a cupboard? Now that’s fun.

The cheers will hopefully give Connor enough confidence and focus to fly well, and personally she’s thinking that if the TARDIS has even half the ego that she has, then this is in the bag, but who knows what the six-pack of energy drinks will do to the pair of them. 

The Doctor’s opened the doors wide. Sure, she’s got screens, but the ability to swap to Visual Flight Rules probably won’t hurt. Plus it really freaks people out, and if you’re about to take part in a high-powered sky race with people who are far more wealthy, experienced and prepared than you, it’s quite good to pull the rug out from under their feet before getting in the air.

“Got your map?” The Doctor asks out loud.

The TARDIS pulls up a map of the aerial course on her screen, coordinate limits turned into big tubes for them to race in like a Sonic The Hedgehog bonus stage.

“Got your fixed-temporal space flight controls?”

Three panels of the console flip over, making it half her usual and the other half one white retro-buttoned panel, one pseudo victorian with brass and leather straps, and one she’s never seen before that’s all touch and holo-screen. The TARDIS transfers the map to it, where it projects and spins, with facts about the area - temperature, wind speed, and total seagull percentage - blinking and updating on the side.

“And got your smart, handsome, beautiful, amazingly capable space pilot?”

The TARDIS screen turns on again, showing a picture of Martha and Jack.

“Pilot, not pilot _s_ , you’ve got to pick one.”

It flickers between the two, and eventually turns off, leaving her looking at her reflection in the black.

“There we go.”

The Doctor laughs as the engines outside start to reach a crescendo. With a few button presses and a pull of a lever, the TARDIS starts to thrum and glow.

She lets the excitement overtake her for a moment, caffeine and sugar buzzing in her blood, and jumps hard on the TARDIS floor until her feet and knees tingle. The Doctor presses her forehead to the time rotor as if she’s trying to psychically link with the TARDIS, push her energy and happiness into her. But they’re already linked. The TARDIS already feels her. Already knows what she needs.

Outside, bells start chiming and people cheer. The lighting changes and floods everything red.

**_beep_ **

A lever pushes into her hand. 

**_beep_ **

She finds the buttons with her fingers.

**_beep_ **

The map shifts to first person.

**_BEEP_ **

The light floods green and the wave of sound is like an explosion as everyone takes off. They _are_ explosions. Pistons and cylinders and concussion cores, even The Eye fuelling the TARDIS is an explosion that will never manifest.

The Doctor rams the neutronic shielding up to protect herself, and pulls down the lever that gets the TARDIS up in the air and moving far faster than any Police Box has a right to go.

Maybe they’ll pull her over for speeding.

She darts around pushing and pressing and pulling things, not even knowing why for some of them, just letting the TARDIS nudge her in the right direction.

The other ships are blips of light on the map, gold and white and mauve and pink and blue and green.

“Nah, we can do better than that!”

There are only fractions of a second in which to catch glimpses of the ships out of the door. They’re not far away, all clustered together, huge aerodynamic hunks of metal, riding each other’s slipstreams even as they try to overtake each other.

Like Connor, they assume she’ll never catch them in her flying cuboid. Well, her box may not be streamlined, but her teardrop shaped neutronic shielding - that most certainly is.

The Doctor guns it, weaving in and out of the other ships, the TARDIS’s tiny size the ultimate advantage for darting around the pack.

She speeds up until she reaches the the frontrunners. The two ships are pressed up against each other with barely a millimetre to spare, but between a white wing and a gold body cavity, there’s a tiny hollow. She presses forward and at the very last second, drops her shield to fit through and takes the lead.

She has about two seconds of celebration, before there’s an ear-splitting crunch behind her.

Spinning a wheel, she turns the TARDIS around - flying backwards no different to forwards - and peers out the door.

The gold bullet has crash-landed on a tall building, its front section partially split off, hanging over the edge. Something breaks away and the Doctor’s fingers are already at the console before she’s even understood what she’s seeing.

The TARDIS drops back as if suddenly magnetised, hurtling in a steep angle towards the ground.

The Doctor wraps a leather strap around her hand, spins a phone dial, and the TARDIS tilts ninety degrees, sending her sprawling over the console, arm screaming with her weight on it as she tries to find a grip on the time rotor.

The thing falls through the doors, and she slams a button that starts rewinding all of the TARDIS’s actions. 

Clambering up from the floor, she starts clenching and unclenching her hand to bring back the feeling - or less painful feeling at least - and elbows the lever to push the shields back up.

Turning around, at first she doesn’t realise why her subconscious risked her podium position for a chair, but then she spots the legs hanging over the top, and from the seat she can’t see, there’s a little breathy, “Oh”.

With a small pop, a parachute deploys and flops uselessly to the floor like a discarded sock.

The Doctor rushes over and finds a rather shocked teenage girl - about Connor’s age - lying on her back, still belted into her chair.

Feeling like she’s underwater for a moment, the Doctor pulls out her sonic and buzzes the young woman free, the harness straps retracting into the seat. The teenager doesn’t move, but does say “Oh,” again.

“Are you alright, does anything hurt?” The Doctor asks, scanning her with the screwdriver, then deciding that’s not good enough and quickly darting to the console, overwriting the map with a diagram of a person lying down with their legs up at an angle. Everything comes up fine, except for a presumably long-standing dust mite allergy, and mild hypoglycaemia.

“Can I help you up?” The Doctor asks, kneeling by her again. The young woman shakes her head very slightly.

“I’d rather, uh, stay here for a bit, if it’s all the same.” She whispers, in a lilting Irish accent.

“Alright.” The Doctor says, and starts rummaging in her pockets. Eventually she produces a chocolate bar. “You can have some chocolate when you sit up, your blood sugar’s a bit low. Oh, but otherwise you’re fine, which I should have told you first.”

“Ah, now, you didn’t say there’d be chocolate.” The young woman whispers with a stab at humour that doesn’t quite match her facial expression. She rolls to the side, sliding her legs off the top off the chair, and lies curled up for a moment before pushing herself to a sitting position.

“It’s a fun-size.” The Doctor says, opening it and passing it over. “Never understood what was so fun about having less chocolate than you’d normally have, but that’s humans for you. I’m the Doctor by the way.”

“Tem.” She says, shaking the Doctor’s hand quite officially, before taking a bite of the chocolate. When she swallows, she continues, “If I may ask - Zygon? Zygan? Silan? Or full Silurian, I suppose you might be cloaked. Android? Other?” Tem pauses and suddenly glances at her remaining chocolate. “Fairy?” 

The Doctor grins. She’s always adored being called a fairy, shame it was usually being used as an insult.

“I forgot how much I enjoyed the thirty-first century.” The Doctor says wistfully. She loves how casual they are about these things. She doesn’t even know what a Silan is. 

“It’s thirty-one sixty-seven CE, so that’s thirty-second century, you have to remember to add one to the hundred. Time traveller then?” Tem asks without much concern, finishing off the rest of the chocolate bar.

“Time Lord.”

“Oh, aye? I was offered an honorary knighthood by the UKEW crown for 'services to the government’ after catching the Eyespec hackers. Didn’t take it of course, but I’ll never live it down. I suppose that explains your ship. Don’t suppose you saw what happened to mine by the-“

The Doctor suddenly remembers she was mid-ship race and bounds up to the console. The TARDIS has been auto piloting, and when she pulls up the map, she sees that blue and green are far out in front of everyone else.

“No, sorry, just heard it as I went past. Am I alright to keep flying or…” The Doctor asks, already pressing some buttons.

“It’s your ship. Does feel a bit like cheating though if you’re from the future.” Tem says, rubbing her legs, then standing up to join her at the console. “That’s an…interesting array of technology there.”

“I’m a modder.”

“That’s a spoon.”

“It’s a Hawking deflector. And an emergency cereal redistributor. I appreciate we’re not as high-brow as your…what was your ship?” The Doctor asks, poking the hologram around because it looks impressive.

“A UIRSA Óirlong.”

“Wait, an Óirlong?!” The Doctor exclaims. Tem looks sideways at her.

“I could afford it. No point in being a billionaire if you just sit on your money as if it’s going to hatch like a goose, and every generation of our family has flown since planes were invented. Why?”

“Um,” The Doctor looks a bit awkward and tries to focus on keeping a good racing line while linking up to the 33rd century hyperweb with the other. “Yeah, they’re going to be recalled in about a year’s time. Although reading this, it might be because of this exact incident, so probably best it happened on the whole, but I suppose that’s not much comfort to you right now.” 

Tem buries her head in her hands.

“Don’t suppose you could tell me what to invest in to recoup my losses?” She says, slightly muffled.

“Probably not.”

Tem groans.

“Alright, it’s something beginning with ‘A’, but that’s all I’m telling you.” The Doctor says, feeling suckered and shutting the screen off. A line starts blinking on the race map - a finish line.

“Time to grab onto something. I want second place - no-one ever remembers second, but I want to make it a _close_ second!” 

Immediately the Doctor flicks the universal microfilament destabiliser-slash-unexpected spaghetti conveyor, and Tem’s forced to grab onto the side of the console, as the TARDIS lurches at an angle.

“Would this have still happened if I hadn’t refused to have a co-pilot?” Tem asks, gaze flitting between the door and the map. “Down a bit, hard down!”

“Yeah it’s a structural thing and better you found out when there was someone to stop you plummeting to your death.” The Doctor gabbles, one hand on a blue button, another on red and a foot on a yellow, like she’s playing Twister. “Oh, but if you’re looking for a co-pilot, I think I know a guy!”

“Hard left, hard left! Go! Go!” Tem shouts.

The Doctor flings herself around the console, flicking every single switch down, and pulls on a lever with a whoop.

There’s a roar of an engine just passing them and then the screams of a crowd as the TARDIS breaks through a light barrier, hits the ground and skids to a stop.

The Doctor and Tem both stand there breathing heavily for a moment, while letting the applause wash over them. There’s a huge rumble as their competitors cross and land behind them.

“Oh, that feels good. See, you got your applause anyway, even if you had to share it.” The Doctor says. Tem opens her mouth as if to argue, but then smiles and nods.

“Who were you thinking for a co-pilot anyway? Just in case I want to win next time.” Tem asks.

The Doctor drops the shields, steers her out of the door, and the crowd goes wild. In the distance she can see medics hopping some barriers and running towards them, but someone else gets there first.

“Pile-up! Pile-up! Pile-up!” Connor chants, wrapping his arms around their shoulders and jumping for joy. He suddenly stops and looks at each of them. “It’s alright, no-one got hurt - you’re all right aren’t you?” Connor asks Tem seriously. She looks at the Doctor as if to say, ‘This yahoo?’ But she nods. “Then, hell yeah!” He yells brightly.

This time the Doctor joins in with the shouting and bouncing.

“Pile-up! Pile-up! Pile-up!” 

  



	17. The Old Planet (G-T, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which remembering is a double-edged sword.

* * *

  


The ground under her feet makes a powdery crunch with each step, her trail unmistakeable and easily tracked, winding behind her. Some of the dust gets kicked up and swirls like glittering silver fog in the air. Mostly it just gums up her boots. 

The sky is thick with yellow cloud, but the day is still bright. A single sun tries to burn through - a quirk of refraction, stratospheric elements, and the ubiquitous dust turning the sky behind a slightly sickly fluorescent green.

It could be almost pretty, if viewed without context. An emerald star, over a land of snow, with golden clouds heavy and ready to drop more.

But its not supposed to be green. Sarania is yellow once you break away from Aratan’s atmosphere. The clouds aren’t benign, but filled with silica like a miner’s lung. And that snow is not snow, but the mingled remains of a billion people.

The Doctor pauses in her walking and closes her eyes, trying to get her breathing back under control. She’s not immune to this. It seems like she used to be once. Well, not immune, but better at handling it perhaps. That suffocating weight of death pressing down and worming into every sense. She used to feel above it all, even as she pretended she wasn’t. But not any more.

They lived. The children of Gallifrey lived. River in The Library lived. Even Amy and Rory, yes, they died, but first they lived - lived long, probably happy lives without her.

Why doesn’t that matter? Why doesn’t that fix anything? Why does she always remember them as dead?

Schrödinger’s Police Box, where her hearts are simultaneously broken and whole.

Sometimes she wishes she could start again. That she could have a new set of memories for a new regeneration. Just her and the TARDIS, with nothing appalling to remember, so she can walk on an intellectually interesting planet without hearing echoes of children and the people she loves dying.

The Doctor tries to rub the dust from her face, but it only makes it worse. Her eyes sting and stream.

  


* * *

  


The ruins of the city are disappearing. Buildings are little more than crumbling walls in pentagons and squares, like cookie cutters pressed into the ground. The ones that are still standing are held together by old gnarled vines that have bored through plastic and metal and brick - long dead but still carrying its weight.

It’s one of these the Doctor shelters in as the sun drops like a stone past the horizon. The days and nights are short, but she doesn’t want to be out in the dark. Not purely for the sake of childish fears, but because there are still creatures alive on this planet, even if the dominant species is extinct. And besides, it’s cold.

She settles in one of the chambers with something approaching a stable roof and five mostly intact walls. There’s still some indistinct remnants of furniture that she can’t guess the purpose of. She doesn’t know what the people who lived here looked like. Silicon-based. It’s not a lot to go on. 

The Doctor checks underneath a long low bench for any creature that might take offence to her squatting for the night. Nothing comes flying out at her, but the light of the sonic screwdriver reveals something glittering. Tentatively she reaches out, pokes it, and when nothing happens, pulls it out.

It’s some kind of data drive. Earlier she saw one discarded in what appeared to be a rusted and disintegrating vehicle surrounded by an almost impassably overgrown thicket of scrub brush. It had been almost completely covered with a lounge of lizards curled on it. She was curious, but not enough to plunge her hand into a nest of potentially venomous reptiles.

Her hand tingles painfully at the thought.

This one appears much simpler and stripped back, far less detailed. Not as thin, but still light, blocky and friendly in her hands. If she had to guess, she’d say it was for a child. While it seems surprisingly unscathed, for some reason she’s not surprised when it neither responds to any input, or when a buzz from the sonic fails to power it. She spends the last remaining minutes of daylight trying to pick and blow out the dust that’s in its every orifice, but still has no luck.

As it becomes too dark to see, she has to rely on her fingers to learn about it. They aren’t quite as sensitive as her previous self’s - which is usually a good thing - but she still picks things up that her eyes clumsily glanced over.

The corners are worn, two in particular, as if it was held and balanced along that edge. The Doctor flips it the right way up in her hands, which automatically find their grip in the sides, sliding into miniature grooves. There’s a split in the screen, originating from a crescent dent with a dot above it. The same pattern is on the back of the device at the two ridged edges. A multitude of the little dots pepper the left and right sides of the screen, more at the middle than the top or bottom.

The dominant species was silicon-based. They had rough skin, small hands and fingers - two opposable, two non-opposable, each with minor flat nails with major claws curling above. They could type with one opposable digit on each hand, while the rest steadied the device. Their devices were touch-based and could presumably handle multiple inputs and basic race conditions.

Now she’s getting somewhere. Amazing what you can see when you can’t see. 

The Doctor hears her old self say, ‘I point and laugh at archeologists’. Well, it’s important to have the capacity to laugh at oneself. And her dead-not-dead-but-basically-still-dead wife would be proud.

She wonders what its owner used it for. Information? Communication? Play? All of those things perhaps. Normal children like recording their experiences don’t they? With videos or photos or writing. Maybe it was a diary. Chucked under a bed as they left so that it might be found by someone in the future. Or so it might never be found.

If it is a bed, was this one big, dark, fancy room to be slept in alone, where you could be sick for days, and someone only notice because you missed training? Or was it to be shared with ten other children, who knew exactly what you lacked, beyond just your voice? Or was it to live in with a friend, stacked one on top of the other, the rest of the room for studying, or building projects, or for making bed sheet forts to play Humans in. She’d almost forgotten that. Youthful embarrassment turns her scarlet and boots her out of the memory.

An old teacher whose name she can’t recall berates her. It is not for her to wonder and fancy and project. She is a Time Lord. She can go and observe, as is her right and privilege. But she doesn’t want to. She wants to wonder instead.

What would she have put in a diary? She closes her eyes despite the dark, and tries to cast her mind back into a childhood that’s really more gap than memory. He didn’t write any more than he talked. Wouldn’t have written anything. It could’ve been stolen and used by a bully or a Sister or- or other people. Life wasn’t normal.

This child probably didn’t know anything about normal either. They grew up with an apocalypse reaching its zenith, rushing upon them like a tidal wave, and then were swept away. Maybe being dragged from the house as they typed their last entry - flinging it under their bed thing - was what broke it, even before years of decay could set in.

The Doctor knows she could just brave the lizards and get the other data drive. Dismantle it. Find out how it works so she can repair this one. But she won’t know which is more important. They both are. She doesn’t have the right to choose.

Besides, that would mean returning the exact same way she came, and she’s already walked along that road. Despite the temptation, she’s not going back now.

  


* * *

  


The past of this place is sad and brutal.

But there is a future. 

As the light comes up, she sees a tiny twitch in the ceiling. A pair of huge round eyes blink over one of the dead vines holding up the ceiling. Then several more pairs of eyes. Really quite a lot of them.

The little creature at the end starts nervously nibbling on the vine, exposing a wet, fresh green core. So not dead after all. The vine wobbles precariously, and another creature next to it grabs the little one with a four-fingered hand and pushes it towards the Doctor.

As it leans in for a closer look, she’s able to see it better. Oddly familiar. Lemur-like, a furry tennis-ball-yellow head, with slit nostrils like a snake, but somehow all the cuter for it. Probably helps keep the dust out. Evolutionary Advantage: Aratanian Two-Point-Oh.

It blinks its huge hazel eyes and tilts its head at her, as if trying to guess what she is. Or why she is.

It reaches for the data drive, hand clenching and unclenching. Muscle memory has her hold it out automatically, but she hesitates for a moment just shy of the creature. Then she remembers it’s not her planet, and passes it over.

The drive is nearly as big as it is, and when the creature teeters alarmingly, the ones to either side of it grab it around the middle. Then they lift up the drive, and start passing it along the chain, each making a musical, fascinated ‘ooh’ noise as it travels down their living conveyer-belt.

As it passes out of a hole in the wall, she slowly backs out of the room, then rushes outside and around the building to see where it’s going.

There is an unbroken string of creatures, some big, some small, some different fur colours, eye colours, and bearings. Quite a variable lot. Good. Things which change and evolve and diversify are always much harder to kill off.

An old - or at the very least greying - one receives the drive at the end, makes a politely puzzled hum, and carries it, walking awkwardly on two legs.

The Doctor follows it a short way, breaking through the scrub-brush, and by not paying attention to where she puts her feet, falls with a jolt into what looks like a miniature quarry.

A troop of the creatures stop what they’re doing, and chitter angrily at her, flicking their hands at her until she climbs out. The Doctor perches on the edge to watch them, which is apparently acceptable, but she imagines deliberate interference would not be tolerated.

The old one gives her a surprisingly withering look, then continues carrying it over to a small creature on the bank next to her, that looks scarcely older than an infant. 

It nods, and the old one continues into the pit and to the many burrows in the wall.

“Oh…” The Doctor breathes.

But they’re not burrows. They’re holes, rammed full with items. Data drives, computers, electrical equipment, it’s an archeologist’s treasure trove. You could probably extrapolate the whole history of the Aratanians - the old and the new - from these little glimpses. 

As she watches, it waddles over to a specific wall, rests its burden on its feet, and appears to count the holes, pointing with its finger. It settles on one already containing what appears to be a toy version of the vehicle she saw earlier, and pushes the data drive in with a satisfied purr.

Then with surprising agility, it scampers back towards the infant again.

Quick as a flash, a lizard darts out and attaches itself to the creature’s arm, and it squeals. Other creatures rush over, but before they get there, the bitten one has bashed it with a pebble, and the lizard has skittered up the side of the pit and out into the brush.

The Doctor finds herself rubbing her own hand in sympathy, making it red. It aggravates where she must have scratched it climbing through the prickly undergrowth, and it starts to bleed and sting.

The infant starts chittering and gesturing towards the walls, and the older one starts pointing towards the hole it put the drive in. Then a different one. Then a different one. It makes an upset moan and looks around, seeming lost. The bite. Venomous? It doesn’t remember now. The other creatures purr as if in sympathy, then all but one wandering off to do their jobs. The infant makes a doleful gurgle as it looks towards their catalogue of things, but then pulls at the old one’s hand, and leads it back out. The remaining creature - so richly coloured it’s almost chestnut - goes after them and the Doctor follows the little group.

The infant brings the still slightly confused looking old one to the end of the chain again, chitters to the creature in front - which then pats the old one clumsily, and then skips back towards the opening of the pit again. 

The chestnut however keeps running, and the Doctor follows it all the way back to the house, where it’s greeted by the little yellow one, and then starts peering around as if looking for more things they might have missed.

The Doctor leaves them to it.

Their treasure trove of history - bleak as it might sometimes be - will push them forward, making them grow stronger and smarter, helping them go beyond anything this planet has ever seen.

They are the future. New life being born from the ashes of the old.

The Aratanians are dead. Long live the Aratanians.

  



	18. The Space Beast  (T-M, Other-F/F)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it’s always worth hoping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story-Specific Warnings: Death.

* * *

  


There is nobody in the Magnesia System.

There are no small solar system bodies in the Magnesia System either.

And yet, galloping along a semi-major axis between the outer planets, there is a _something_ , neither asteroid or comet, in complete flagrance of the TARDIS database. 

Now that’s exciting.

  


* * *

  


The Doctor lets the TARDIS guide her to a ‘point of interest’, and steps out onto the shining impenetrable ground. Almost immediately she falls over, the spring in her step amplified by the low gravity that she really ought to have checked for first.

She pushes herself back to her feet, careful not to overclock it and go somersaulting back into the TARDIS. It’s pretty lucky she’s not suffocating.

“I’ll just put a wide-reach atmospheric shield on, shall I?” The Doctor says, sticking her arms out and doing a few little practice bounces.

The TARDIS makes a dull _dong_ and blows out a rush of air like a sigh.

The Doctor looks back inside and sees the shielding lever flicked upright, and the accompanying toggles pressed down.

“Oh.” So she’s not lucky. Just well cared for. “Thank you, dear.”

There’s a brief pause, and then the TARDIS doors close on her with a click.

Whoops.

“Your face is glowing quite beautifully,” says a voice from behind her.

The Doctor spins around, which proves to be a terrible mistake as it takes quite a few seconds to stop and causes her to fall over again.

A woman is watching her from a few metres away. Long, tightly locked hair is curled strategically around her muscled body, and one hand is wrapped around a tall gold axe that she holds like a staff. She puts the Doctor in mind of figures painted on a Greek vase, and a girl standing in a seashell.

The Doctor gets to her feet again, trying to walk over in a casual fashion. She should play this cool.

“Hello, I’m the Doctor. I realise this is a bit forward, we’ve only just met, and it’s not a criticism or anything, but I can’t help but notice - this planet has no atmosphere. How come you aren’t dead?” 

On the other hand, the woman’s already seen her make an ass of herself, so might as well go all in.

The woman blinks at her. 

“I _am_ dying.”

“Oh.” The Doctor tries to remember what an acceptable response is to that, and watches the woman’s hand shake on her halberd.

“Time has given its verdict.” The woman says, her voice quavering slightly as if she’s holding back a great deal of pain.

“Might I suggest an appeal?” The Doctor says, holding out a hand to her. The woman doesn’t take it, but laughs.

“I will uphold the laws of entropy.” 

“I am a Time Lord.” The Doctor blurts out. “With a spaceship. Which travels in time. It can even go to hospitals.”

The woman laughs again, but perhaps it increases the pain, as she wraps her arms around her chest as if holding herself together.

“I can’t come with you.” She says, shaking her head.

“Yes, of course you can, you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to, I-“

“No,” The woman says with difficulty, taking a few deep breathes through her mouth as she curls inwards, her hands gripping her upper arms tightly. Wasn’t she holding a halberd? “I really can’t.”

The Doctor looks down and sees that one of the woman’s feet is stuck in a hole in the crystalline ground. She almost laughs.

“Is that it? I can get you out of there.” The Doctor says confidently, and starts running through potential grease options while a song randomly starts playing in her head.

  


_You're the one that I want, (you are the one I want), ooh ooh ooh, honey-_

  


Suddenly there’s a bang. The ground seems to hiccup, and the woman groans.

Then it’s not a groan, but something much deeper, much louder, and the planet shakes as if it’s going to be blown to pieces. 

The Doctor curls up in a ball, bouncing in the weak gravity, hands protecting her head.

Everything falls still again.

Rhythmic waves of hot, wet air blow over her.

“Sorry.” A great booming voice pants, making the ground beneath her vibrate. “I thought I could keep it up until you had left.”

  


_The one that I need, (one I need), oh yes indeed, (yes indeed)…_

  


* * *

  


There _is_ somebody in the Magnesia System. 

She is also a small solar system body.  


Her name is Qyran.

The Doctor’s fingers itch to touch her, but she knows it would be the height of rudeness, no different than if someone started stroking _her_ hair or face.

Massive lilac eyes blink dazedly from a face three times as wide as the Doctor can reach. It’s covered in thick rough hair like a deerhound, becoming shorter and more velvety along her muzzle and mouth, where she catches glimpses of thousands of tombstone teeth that glimmer like opals rather than bone.

“Your face is glowing quite beautifully.” Qyran repeats quietly, anything louder likely to to damage the Doctor’s ears. She still sounds confused as to why the Doctor hasn’t run away yet. Then as if curiosity is overwhelming her, she asks, “What does your skin feels like?”

The Doctor holds up her hand, and Qyran flitters a long prehensile whisker along her palm. Then with great care, she leans her huge head forward, and presses the bristles of her muzzle to it. The Doctor strokes her. It makes her fingers tingle.

“I’m glad,” Qyran says in a rumble, “That I got to feel the sensation of another creature before I died.”

The Doctor swallows, her hand stills, and the warm feelings in her dim.

“That wasn’t a ploy to make me leave then?”

“No.” Qyran growls gently.

“Do you want me to save you?”

“No.” 

The Doctor nods, and rubs her fingertips back and forth along the velvety fur to help her think. There is only one thing she ever wants when she faces her imitations of death.

“Do you want me to stay?” The Doctor asks.

Qyran opens her mouth, then pauses. The Doctor sees her violet tongue twitch, as if she can’t decide on a word. The starlight catches on her teeth and they glitter with rainbows.

Then Qyran closes her eyes and sighs, the gust of warm air ruffling the Doctor’s hair.

“Yes.”

  


* * *

  


Qyran isn’t up for talking much. But that’s fine, the Doctor’s happy to ramble into the silence about celestial bodies, and psychic cloaking, and King Lear, and the topography of shells.

Occasionally Qyran will interject a question to force her to explain something better, or think about what she’s said. It’s excellent.

And occasionally Qyran will fall asleep. But that’s alright too.

The Doctor skips about on the small planet, never too far from the opening that Qyran’s head and neck extends from like a snail. Even when Qyran sleeps, she doesn’t retract back inside, though the Doctor isn’t sure whether her physiology doesn’t work like that, or she’s simply too tired.

Right now she’s unsure whether Qyran is awake or not, but she carries on talking anyway while leaping along a whirled crevice, from one side to the other, sometimes landing on her hands and bucking back to her feet. There’s something about the low gravity, the feel of her muscles working, and the constant stream of consciousness flowing out of her mouth that makes her feel quite giddy.

“-Or changing shells when they’re outgrown like a hermit crab. I knew a hermit who lived behind our home in the south before it all went wrong, who helped me to read my own mind, which is actually a skill, and I think if I hadn’t had the TARDIS, then I would probably be living on a mountain now too.”

“I am a mountain.” Qyran growls with a laugh that makes the shell under her feet shake.

The Doctor blushes and tries to remember interesting crab facts to bring everything back on track.

Qyran turns to look at her, blinking slowly like a happy cat, and the Doctor bounds over to sit by her, breathing hard. Qyran’s nose twitches slightly as she sniffs her, and the Doctor blurts out, “Crabs are also known as decapods because they have ten legs, and an octopus is an octopod, but technically so is a spider, and I don’t know why male octopuses aren’t septapods because one of their legs - which is actually an arm - is actually a-“

“Are you all right?” Qyran asks lightly, cutting her off. The Doctor nods silently, growing hot with embarrassment. 

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to annoy you.” She says, trying to slow down her racing brain to something more socially acceptable.

“Not at all, you don’t annoy me. I love watching you excited and prancing about.” Qyran says, resting her muzzle by the Doctor’s legs.

“Why?” The Doctor asks, genuinely puzzled. Usually it’s proved a good way to get people’s backs up.

Qyran’s huge lilac eyes flicker up and down her body, and the Doctor knows she’s viewing her in a spectrum she can’t even imagine.

“You don’t see as I see.” Qyran purrs. “It makes you glow all over, from tip to toe, and then you come back and sit close to me and you glow even more.” Whiskers brush against the Doctor’s cheeks, her hearts and elsewhere. Qyran’s rumbling laugh makes everything vibrate. “Yes, like that.”

  


* * *

  


It's much easier to work out whether Qyran is awake or not now.

Asleep is quiet. Awake she whimpers and the planet shakes.

After less than an hour, the whimpering starts up again, and the Doctor sits up with a snort, half of her mind still in a bizarre kitchen-slash-stable where she was trying to convince the head chef-slash-stallion that she didn’t want any celery.

She stumbles over to Qyran, and rubs her hands against her muzzle. Qyran quiets a bit, but doesn't open her eyes.

"Where does it hurt?"

"Joints. Burn." Qyran moans, her breathing ragged. 

From what the Doctor can gather, Qyran is also some kind of mutipod, but her limbs are vestigial - lack of use and pressure keeping them curled towards her core in her shell.

The Doctor jumps up onto her neck - far higher than she'd usually be able to, thanks to the gravity - and sits straddled across her skull, rubbing large circles with her hands, as Qyran attempts to make her breathing deep and even.

It's been four days. It's not getting better. The good hours are becoming fewer and farther between. It’s probably time.

"Qy? How clear are you right now?"

Qyran doesn't answer immediately, and the Doctor feels some of her tension slowly draining under her hands. 

Eventually she breathes out, "Seven." 

That's a good number. Probably the best it's going to be. The Doctor tries to concentrate on keeping the rhythm of her massage steady, and pretends this is just a conversation about the weather.

"In my TARDIS I have some Promethan Hemlock. If I dose it right, it should ease the way. If I get it wrong, you might die immediately, and possibly very painfully."

Qyran breathes steadily, her response carried on her exhales and full of pauses.

“Now why would…a nice being like you…have something like that?"

The Doctor feels her opening her eyes, the muscles in Qyran’s face moving under her legs. Looking out at the stars, she thinks. 

“…Let’s try. Better I…take it…off your hands."

The Doctor keeps rubbing circles on her head, focussing on the feel of the hair under her fingers, trying to remember to breathe herself.

"I have some big bottles of coffee syrup. It might mask the taste, if there’s one you like."

"Good idea."

Well, it's an idea at least. The Doctor's not sure about the morality of anything she and Qyran are doing.

After ten more minutes, it feels like they might be heading towards an easier hour, and the Doctor clambers off and runs to the TARDIS.

She returns a few minutes later with a wheelbarrow full of two-litre tester bottles the TARDIS has made up for her, with a notepad for results, and she hears Qyran laugh for what feels like the first time in forever.

"Now, I can pour, or you can just eat them - they're sugar glass. It was the TARDIS's idea."

"I'll eat then. Thank her." The Doctor nods.

The Doctor starts taking them out of the wheelbarrow. Fourteen. She lines them up in alphabetical order. Then she changes her mind and does it by colour gradient. Then by reverse alphabetical order.

"Which is your favourite?" Qyran asks softly.

The Doctor tips a bottle over and she thinks it's going to smash, her hearts pounding as she grabs for it, catching it just in time. She closes her eyes.

"If you could have one right now, which would it be?"

There's no chill, but the Doctor can't stop herself shivering. She opens her eyes and finds herself clutching the bottle to her chest, Qyran blinking slowly at her.

"There's a, uh, an almond and a, uh, and a cherry that are good together. You should try those first.” The Doctor stammers, picking out another bottle as well.

"Both at once?"

The Doctor nods vigorously.

Qyran winks at her and opens her mouth wide. The Doctor places them in, trying not to linger over her shimmering seven-coloured teeth. She wonders how many she has, and wants to count them, but their time is probably limited, and there are still twelve more bottles to test.

  


* * *

  


“You’ll feel like you’re spinning.”

“I have an unstable orbit. I’m used to it. Can’t be much worse than passing Pelion and Feloi.” The long sentence tires Qyran and her breathing becomes ragged again, but she looks at the Doctor as if expecting her to grin at her joke. How could she smile?

“It will make you feel drunk.” The Doctor continues, as if reading off a list. Her eyes skitter to the jar of syrupy gingerbread-flavoured smooth-or-instant death. 

“Good. Always wanted to try that.” Qyran says, her eyes closed for a second, head to one side so it’s easier to talk and breathe.

“How do you even know what being drunk is?” The Doctor asks, realising just how much a beast-horse-snail-planet shouldn’t know about the universe.

“The same way I knew…what form to take…when you arrived.”

“Which is?” 

Qyran opens her eyes a fraction.

“A secret.” She purrs, cheekily.

The Doctor gives her a look. Qyran’s eyes glitter.

“Are you really not going to tell me?” The Doctor asks finally.

“I’m really not going to tell you.” Qyran says, breathy voice filled with mirth. 

The Doctor isn’t really surprised. Qyran won’t even tell her her species. Of course, the Doctor could always go to the TARDIS and find out. But she won’t.

“But, uh,” The Doctor continues, closing her eyes and trying not to hear the words coming out of her mouth, “Ultimately it causes respiratory failure. You’ll probably fall unconscious before your heart fails - if you have one - but you might start to-“

“Doctor?”

“Yes?”

“Is any of this much different…from what will happen…to me anyway?”

“Not really.”

“Then don’t tell me.” Qyran says gently. It’s not a rebuke, but the Doctor flinches anyway.

“Are you sure about this. We don’t have to do it now.” The Doctor gabbles, and she feels Qyran’s deep slow breath on her face. The Doctor tries to breathe in the same rhythm but reversed, breathing in the evidence of Qyran’s life and giving her hers.

“It hurts.” Qyran says, the hint of a whimper threatening its way into her voice. “I want to go while I can still look at the stars. While I can understand what I’m seeing.”

“I might not have done it right.” The Doctor whispers, her voice breaking.

“It’s alright if you didn’t.” Qyran says softly. “But please let me try. A chance at no pain. I couldn’t even have wished it without you. If you hadn’t stayed.”

The Doctor rubs her wet jacket sleeve across her face, and feels the planet jump as Qyran twitches with pain.

There’s a brush of whiskers against her cheek.

“Please. Where there’s tears, there’s hope.”

Her tears, for Qyran’s hope. She can do that.

  


* * *

  


The Doctor sits besides Qyran’s muzzle, stroking her as they look out at the stars.

There’s no twitching. No whimpering. There’s crying, but perhaps the longer she cries, the longer Qyran’s comfort will last.

“Those two over there,” Qyran is slurring, but still sensible. “Double stars. Inzotz and Vydos. Named for gods of poetry and logic. It goes that they hate each other, but that’s wrong, they love each other, it’s how they can rule in balance. They don’t understand how fragile their system’s orbits are, that hate would just kill them all.” She tilts her head a little to free her jaw, too tired to keep her head up. “What happens to them?”

“The Dorrichian? They do alright. Get greedy for a short while, taxing everything that comes through their system, but eventually they grow out of that.”

“I hope they learn the right story ‘bout the stars…” Qyran says.

“Well, some of the galaxy’s best stellarnet-coders are Dorrichian. If that isn’t a balance of poetry and logic, I don’t know what is.” She might take a visit to that system before they get to their Golden Age. Just to be sure.

They keep teaching each other about the stars and planets, until eventually Qyran becomes too tired to do much more than mumble. For once the Doctor doesn’t try to fill the silence, just looks out into the sky.

A tiny asteroid tumbles past in the distance. No tail, no atmosphere for it to pass through, floating on to crumble another day.

She wishes on it anyway. Just in case a lump of space debris has any say in keeping pain away.

“Stroke…” Qyran whispers suddenly.

“I am stroking you.” The Doctor replies, pressing more firmly. 

Qyran’s breath hitches.

“It’s alright, even if you can’t feel me, I’m still here.” The Doctor says.

She stands up - keeping a hand on her just on case - and moves further in front, where Qyran can see her without moving her eyes, even though they fail to focus. It means kneeling in a puddle of drool, but it doesn’t matter, her jacket’s already covered in snot and spit and saltwater anyway.

“Glow…” Qyran whispers, fighting to keep her eyelids open.

The Doctor rests her hot, wet face against Qyran’s nose, peering into her lilac eyes while she still has the chance. 

“You have that effect on me.”

Qyran huffs with laughter, and then struggles to get her breath back. Her eyes shut, but the Doctor still doesn’t look away.

“My progenitor burned, I don’t want to burn.” Qyran slurs, panicked.

“You won’t, your orbit’s far away from any stars or planets, and it’ll stay that way, I’ll make sure of it.” The Doctor promises. 

Qyran’s breathing settles again, getting deeper and slower, as if she’s fallen asleep. 

After a few minutes, Qyran gasps and her eyes open, actually focussing on the Doctor, seeing her. 

“I’ll be here, and if you’re lost you can land on me, and then you’ll know where you are again. Will you remember to do that?” Qyran says quickly and clearly.

“I will.” The Doctor replies, still in shock as Qyran’s eyes slide shut, for what she knows - with a certainty she can’t explain - is the final time. She was too sharp, she wasn’t ready, she should have said it softly, like a lover, not a frightened child. But the moment’s passed, and even if Qyran can still hear, she doesn’t know the words she wants to say or how to make them sound right.

Qyran keeps breathing. The puddle of drool expands and cools under the Doctor’s knees, soaking up her trousers, but she doesn’t move, even as the minutes start stretching into hours.

Her breaths get shallower and shallower, until eventually their rhythm starts falling away. Occasionally she gasps, and the Doctor springs to attention as if slapped, in case Qyran opens her eyes, or says something else, or miraculously recovers and isn’t really going to die after all.

It’s in the middle of a lull, when suddenly her breathing cuts out entirely. The Doctor feels her stomach drop as she clings to her muzzle, fighting not to collapse numbly to the ground, because she knows she won’t be able to get back up.

Then it starts again.

The mixture of shock and relief and dread at inevitability hurts her chest as if she’d just been plunged into an ice pool.

For the next few hours, it keeps like that, stopping and starting, until the Doctor starts mumbling that it’s alright to go, as if that might stop it all.

Each time she starts counting. Fifteen seconds. Twenty-seven seconds. Twenty-two seconds. Forty-three seconds. Nine seconds. Fifty-six seconds.

Then suddenly it’s at a hundred seconds and counting. Three hundred. Five hundred. The Doctor finally stops counting at seven hundred-and-seventy-seven, and lies across her still-warm nose, stroking her.

The tears have stopped now. They were in exchange for hope. Not the Doctor’s - the hope that somehow she’d live and be happy forever - but Qyran’s hope for a peaceful end. And they worked. For one of them. Qyran was right.

The Doctor looks out across the sky, towards a binary solar system with stars she’d never known the names for, and kisses Qyran gently on the muzzle.

It’s probably always worth hoping for something.

  


* * *

  


There is nobody in the Magnesia System.

But there is a small solar system body.

Floating along a semi-major axis between the outer planets, there is a shell with whirls that spin hypnotically if you take the time to watch its rotation. It is neither asteroid or comet, and shifts its orbit every thousand years or so, never veering too close to planet or star. Its classification is unknown, and yet it’s in every starship database.

And its name is Qyran.

  



	19. The Imperial Assassin (G, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which society isn’t always what you want it to be.

* * *

  


The 21st century is where everything changes.

That's what Jack likes to say isn't it? Standing on a roof, coat flapping dramatically, internal background music probably swelling to a crescendo.

(Does he know he doesn't have an audience? What does he do if the wind shifts? Fall off, come back to life, and climb back up there again? Give it up and go get a smoothie? How long could she spy on him before he'd notice?)

Really it's more like the 15th century. But the sanitation is even worse than the Bristol backstreets on a Friday night, so she doesn’t spend a lot of time here. 

The 15th century shows the all the traditional markings of a dominant species just at the very beginning of their path to a Golden Age. Usually those steps are as follows:

  * The dominant species that has spread out across their planet starts mixing again properly after their long estrangement and convergent growth.
  * Some parts of the species determine themselves more 'civilised' than others, creating systematic social, educational, and and even physical barriers to try and enforce this idea.
  * Those deemed lesser are forced into menial jobs such as farming, general labour, and servitude, often with a military component.
  * Segregation is once again attempted, despite the upper caste's reliance on the lower for food, security etc.
  * Rebellion occurs. Is beaten down. A war is started that can have both sections of society facing and shooting in the same direction and otherwise act as distraction. 
  * The regents realise that they have to throw a few bones to the underclass or risk future rebellions. Limited opportunities for social mobility spring up: Ability to work among the upper echelons, higher promotions within the military, scholarships for previously unattainable education become available, minor bits of technology are donated making some menial jobs less strenuous - but not too easy - in return for greater expected yield, so ultimately is no less work.
  * And when eventually the lower classes clock the scheme, it starts to spiral again: Rebellion, war, throwing bones, rebellion, war, bones and so on and so forth until eventually a kind of equality is reached, despite the upper class's kicking and screaming.



It’s strange for the Doctor to imagine that supposedly intelligent creatures can live like that, and she finds it quite sad really. But eventually they'll become a shining society.

It's this the Doctor tries to focus on while weaving through markets, churches, and courts, while her eyes stick on servants and slaves, bent over farmers peddling wares with crooked backs, and poor girls with babies in archways.

One day it won't matter how they're born. They'll all have the opportunity to succeed by working hard, to be judged on their own merits, and not have their lifestyles and lifespans dictated by a quirk of parentage. 

Then they'll be ready to take their place among the stars.

  


* * *

  


There isn’t a trial, as far as she can tell.

The boy stole one of Lord Horace’s horses. He’s admitted to it. And now he’s going to be hanged.

‘To death’ - by a rope. This is the kind option apparently, rather than being hung alive in chains until nature takes its course. That is how they take into account that he can’t be more than thirteen. That is their mercy.

The Doctor wants to leave, but she’s boxed into the little alcove she’s hiding in, the crowd packed tight to hear the court’s decrees, and it looks like she’s going to be stuck here for the duration.

A well-dressed man reads out more notices: Valuation of coinage, reminder that no meat is to be bought or consumed tomorrow, a sneak preview of the contents of the sermon, a list of the recently branded.

She idly scratches an Old High Gallifreyan mark for ‘you are here’ into the soft stone, then realises what she’s doing and tries - unsuccessfully - to rub it off.

“-And a reminder to Gabriel Hammersdown to please turn himself in - Hello there Gabe - because now that most of the city guards have at least one broken arm, Lord Horace has decreed that no more are to be sent after you.”

The crowd gives a cheer, and looking out into the court, she sees a large leather-clad fist raise in the air.

“Haha, yes, quite. Now, we have one guest announcement that’s a little less fun I’m afraid. So pray silence for Mister, uh, Teci- Tecpil-co-ne-tzo-pilot-l, Mister Tecpilconetzopilotl.

That’s quite a mouthful. The Doctor refuses to acknowledge her sinking feeling by looking up, instead carrying on rubbing a wet thumb over her graffiti.

“ _Lord_ Tecpilconetzopilotl, if you please.” Corrects a plummy voice.

Cloister bells start ringing in the Doctor’s head.

“People of the court. Here I am, a stranger in your strange land, and I am afraid that I bring news of gravest consequence. For you see, there is one among you who appears of your kind, but is in fact an interloper, a dangerous intruder, who has snuck into your house and intends to squat here, feeding off you, until finally recaptured and _dealt with_.”

The man’s tone leaves no mistake as to what he means by that, and the crowd starts looking around at each other, jostling and whispering.

“All the information we have on this individual, is that they arrived here in a stolen ve- uh, _cart_ , they are likely to look and speak and act in a thoroughly inappropriate way, and they are known in our land as a _Gallifreyan_.”

Yep, yep, that’s a mauve alert alright, wee-woo wee-woo, time to go.

The Doctor starts desperately looking for an opening in the crowd. 

“What’s a Gallifreean, some kin' a Irish?” Shouts a nearby girl in a thick Scottish accent, and the crowd titters.

Maybe she could crawl through their legs - or would that draw even more attention?

The well-dressed man takes the stage again.

“Thank you, Lord Tecpil-conetzo-pilotl. So, please report anyone suspicious to the men in the red robes, thank you for coming, and I hope to see you all in the square at midday tomorrow!” He finishes brightly.

Everyone starts moving around, and the crush makes her press back into the shadows.

Calm down, it’s fine, no-one noticed her before, she just needs to wait until the crowd thins a bit, no-one will notice her in here.

Immediately, a short red-haired girl backs into her alcove, treading on her toes. The girl spins around, takes one look at her clothes with sharp, discerning eyes, and her jaw drops. 

“Aw, you ain’t from around here, are ye?” The Doctor hushes her desperately - eyes flickering towards the crowd for an opening, and the girl flaps back at her. “Nah, nah, d’nae take off, me neither.”

The court starts to thin out, and the Doctor appraises her. Red hair in this day and age, and a very not-local accent. She can’t tell her age - young but older than she looks. Whether that’s in years or experience though, the Doctor can’t tell.

The young woman is a bit pale, her freckles standing out on her nose, but attempts what the Doctor’s sure is supposed to be a reassuring grin as she seems to distractedly formulate a plan.

“I used to be Scottish.” The Doctor whispers, the combination of anxiety and being forced to wait instead of doing something about it, making her a little thick-headed.

Her new friend is only half-listening, staring out of the archway. 

“Well, some folks think ahm from the Pale.” The crowd looks navigable now, but still thick enough to get lost in. “Let’s head t’tavern, and we’ll see what yur aboot, that alreet?”

Cold fingers wrap around the Doctor’s hand.

“Follow close, avoid the reds - easy enough?” She asks, smiling. The Doctor nods.

In an instant she’s pulled out of the alcove, and into the sweep of people. Part of the tide seems to naturally be heading towards a little pub a short distance away, and they step through the door as naturally as anyone else.

“Angel’s table free?” The Doctor hears her ask a woman at the bar, almost shouting over the noise, and the woman waves them through to the back. Her friend shuts the door behind them, and the sound immediately muffles.

“Picked that up nicely din’t ye? See, it’s not so hard.”

They’re in a small, dark, dusty kitchen, and the Doctor finds herself steered onto a bench, with a table in front of her.

“Now, lemme get you a drink - Bess won’t mind, she’s a lamb for us weirdos - and you can fill me in. Don’t worry if Gabe comes in, he’s a back-roomer too - in more ways than one, if you catch m’ drift, they don’t like that round here - but he knows the score with us lot. He won’t hurt ye, just wants to be left to hi’self.”

She slides a cup of something thick and malty across to to her, and the Doctor wonders if a daiquiri is out of the question.

“So, then.” She continues, sitting opposite and steepling her hands, looking over them with her brown eyes alight with interest. “What are ye?”

“I don’t even know your name.” The Doctor says, turning her tankard around in her hands, trying to gauge if she’s reading this right.

“Mairead. There ye go, come on now, I won’t tell.” She says excitedly.

“You’re asking me for my species…”

“Aye.”

Tapping the tips of her fingers together, Mairead looks like she’s going burst from anticipation. 

“I’m a Time Lord. Or Gallifreyan, as they...said…”

Mairead has stilled. Her grin has fallen away, and her pale face turns so white, the Doctor’s sure she’ll collapse.

“I’m not a bad one!” The Doctor blurts out, standing up either to run, or dart around the table to catch her, she doesn’t know. “I’m a good one, I swear! I’m the Doctor - they hate me, they’re after me, like you saw. Whatever it is, I promise I’m no threat to you!”

Mairead’s eyes widen, her nostrils flair, and she presses her blue lips so tightly together, they almost disappear.

“If you’ve made your home here, that’s fine. I’m not a non-interventionist - practically an _interventionist_ if anything - I’m not hauling anyone away, I’m no danger to you, honest.”

Across the table, Mairead takes a few deep breaths, and then pulls the Doctor’s tankard towards herself, taking a drink. She taps her fingers on the metal, as she tries to formulate words that seem to take a great deal of effort.

“…Your very _existence_ , is a danger t’ me.” She says quietly, staring furiously at a spot on the table.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to risk leading them here either, I’ll just go, I’ll take the TARDIS and-“

“Oh aye, I get it, the stolen ‘cart’.” Mairead says softly, her eyes finally looking up from their knot of wood, and fixating on the Doctor’s. “That’s why ye thought they were after you.”

The Doctor’s hearts pound in her chest, and her brain desperately tries to catch up.

“Wait, you’re a Gallifreyan? A Lay-Gallifreyan? But you can’t be-”

“I am a _Natural_ Gallifreean, and you don’t get to decide what I can be!” Mairead shouts, suddenly on her feet, and the Doctor raises her hands placatingly.

“Sorry, sorry, I forgot that wasn’t the- what you call-“ She stammers, desperately trying to remember the differences between what La- Natural Gallifreyans call themselves, and what Time Lords call them.

Mairead looks surprised at herself for shouting. Her sudden difficulty with words makes more sense now. They’re supposed to be silent in the presence of a Time Lord.

The Doctor reassesses her. _Nem_ probably, not ‘her’. Functional hairstyle and clothes, fierce and daring, the sort of person that actually managed to leave Gallifrey, not just dream about it. She should ask for confirmation, but now really isn’t the time, so assumption it is.

“How did you get here?” The Doctor asks as gently as she can. Mairead continues glaring, but slowly sits down again. “You can tell me. I’m _the Doctor_ , I’m hardly going to dob you in for stealing a TARDIS.”

Her reputation hopefully proceeds her. Though whether she’s a demon or an angel in nir mind, the Doctor doesn’t know.

“I din’t steal a TARDIS. I hitched a lift on a stolen one.” Mairead says, grudgingly. “I was hauling parts in the Citadel scrap yard, and there was this impounded chameleon-jammed TARDIS. Looked like an eatery - do ye know what an eatery is? I know you lot have your little nutrition tabs - either way, this person comes running in, knocks all my stuff out of my hands, and starts kissing the door and apologising - not to me, to it, all while I’m thinkin’ that ye won’t touch each other but give ye a _time machine_. Anyway then she turns around and starts picking my stuff up and shoving it back at me, and she saw my heart,” Ne plucks at nir shawl as if the little badge is still there, differentiating the single-hearted workers from the double. “ _I_ realised she was that human they were freakin’ out about, _she_ realised I was a Natural, an’ then she asked if I wanted to get the hell outta there. Din’t hesitate.”

Something tugs at the Doctor’s brain, but then it scatters into the wind like smoke. Every time she tries to think about it, it pulls away, until she decides the story seems reasonable enough, and decides not to examine it any more.

Mairead carries on as if ne can’t stop. Ne probably hasn’t been able to tell anyone what happened before.

“Took me straight here. She was trying t’ meet someone but landed off. I told her she could just leave me cus it din’t make a damn bit o’ difference t’ me where I was, and meant I wouldn’t be there when they caught her and dragged her back to Gallifree. Fat lot o’ good tha’s done, cus now they’ve sent someone to bloody assassinate me anyway.” 

Mairead is breathing hard, and takes another swig of beer.

“Don’t you have to be important to be assassinated?” The Doctor asks, wishing she’d got a look at the Celestial Intervention Agency operative they’re dealing with. Then she realises what she’s just said. “Wait- I didn’t mean-“

“Nah, nah, yu’r reet.” Mairead says, putting the tanker down with a bang and running a tongue over nir teeth. “Cus I’m not important, they could just let me go, but instead they’re tryin’ to kill me. Riddle me that, _Time Lord_.”

She doesn’t know. They should be tracking the TARDIS, not Mairead. A young L- Natural Gallifreyan with nothing but the clothes on nir back, a scrap hauler with no training, who’s almost physically indistinguishable from a human doesn’t seem like any real danger to the causal nexus. The Doctor’s sure she’d sense it if it was CIA levels of bad.

“I’m one o’ the first true Natural Gallifreeans to step onto an alien world. Not onto a ship, not into a war zone, but just a different planet where there’s nothing to do but explore. I reckon it’s that they don’t want other people gettin’ ideas. Bein’ a legend is one thing,” Mairead says, nodding towards the Doctor. “But bein’ a _real person_ , ah well, that’s different. Need t’ nip it in the bud. Make an example.”

The Doctor sees a thirteen year old black boy set to swing from a set of gallows, and a man with his fist raised triumphantly in the air to the sound of cheers.

“Can I help you?” The Doctor asks, trying to come up with a plan to save nem.

It’s quiet for a moment.

“No.” Mairead says firmly. “But you _can_ do exactly what I say.”

  


* * *

  


They break through the forest undergrowth, avoiding the nettles, sinkholes, and unexpected ponds, stopping just shy of a clearing.

“Alreet, now we all know the plan-“ Mairead says, slightly too loudly into the silence.

“No, I don’t.” The Doctor whispers, slightly desperately. “You just disappeared for five minutes, came back, dragged me with you and never told me anything.” Is this how she makes people feel? Because this would explain a lot. 

Mairead points to a large, rough looking stump.

“ _You_ are gonna stand on _that_ , and look very unarmed and easily capturable.” 

“I don’t want to be a honey trap - what if they just shoot me?”

“How old are ye?”

“About three thousand years old depending on which standard you’re-“

“My great-grandam made it to a hundred-and-forty-two.” Mairead says, slapping the Doctor on her shoulder. “We threw a damn party at ver burial - Misneach had never known anything like it. There’s a picture of ver on the town sign with vis last words as the new motto: Misneach - Na leig leis na buidsich buannachadh.”

The Doctor doesn’t know any of the languages spoken beyond Endeavour, but nods as if she understands anyway. Mairead seems perfectly aware of the lie and pats her again.

“Sometimes it’s just a person’s day to go, eh. Now, get up on that stump.”

The Doctor leans back against nir hand as it tries to push her through the trees.

“Can we have a plan to disarm them?” The Doctor asks-slash-begs.

“Well, if you can do it from that stump, then sure, but if not-“

The Doctor pulls out her sonic and waves it enthusiastically.

“Wa’s that, a psionic wrench?” Mairead asks, trying to get a closer look.

“Used to be, but then I modded it, and now it’s a sonic screwdriver.” She says proudly. Mairead actually looks impressed.

“I din’t know Time Lords could actually make things. You did that wi’ yur own two hands?”

The Doctor nods.

“Good fer you. Now - stump.” 

With a deep breath, the Doctor does as she’s told, and steps out into the clearing. A squirrel darts up a tree in alarm, but nobody shoots at her.

She climbs up onto the old stump and waits.

After about an hour - despite her time senses telling her it’s only been six-and-a-half minutes - the Doctor gets bored, and wishes that she’d asked if sitting on the stump would also be fine. But she hates it when people mess up _her_ plans, so she just scrapes at the stump with her shoe, pushing off some of the slime and detritus so she can count the rings.

Suddenly Mairead comes dashing through the trees, with three men in red robes and CIA collars hot on her trail.

The Doctor points her screwdriver at them and gives it a blast, causing them to shout and throw away their sparking sidearms.

Mairead keeps running past, while the Doctor slips the sonic back in her pocket, and then she jumps up and down on the stump, waving her arms. 

“Look! It’s me! The Doctor! I’m very unarmed and easily capturable!”

The three Celestial Intervention Agency operatives skid to a halt, staring at her.

“Is it?”

“Yes, yes I think so.”

“Do we have a warrant?”

“We don’t need a warrant, the Doctor is Class A - to be brought before the High Council.”

“Hmm, I don’t know, can you bring it up on the screen?”

“There we go, The Doctor: Class A.”

“No, no, that’s the category, you have to go into actual individuals or it gives you everyone under The Doctor, not just this _the Doctor_. Skews the results.”

“How do I get into the-“

“Press the button. No, the button. No the- just let me-“

“I’ve got it, I’ve got it. Alright, The Doctor. By the mercy of Rassilon, there are a lot of them aren’t there?”

“Search by species designation.”

“How do I-“

“Press the button. No, the button. By _Omega_ -“

“Ah yes, The Doctor, Time Lord, Class… _B_.”

“Well, I never.”

“I suppose we can request a warrant. Shouldn’t take long.”

“But if the Doctor isn’t down as our Reason For Travel, I really don’t think we can alter the target at this stage.”

The Doctor turns to shrug at Mairead, just in time for a human to come charging like a bull from the shadows.

The man grabs Mairead and slams nem against a tree, making the Doctor and CIA agents cover their heads to prevent being pelted with falling acorns and a rather frightened squirrel.

“WHERE’S MY MONEY!” The man bellows.

His massive form hides Mairead, but the Doctor watches him pull back a leather-clad fist, then punch forward, Mairead gasping and moaning, the tree shaking with every impact, until she stops making any noises.

Then he lifts up her floppy body like a pro-wrestler with a championship belt, and throws her into a sinkhole in the ground, with an echoing thud.

The man turns and snarls at them.

“You didn’t see anything - got it?!”

The CIA agents all nod like novelty dogs on a car dashboard, and the man stomps off into the forest, roaring with rage.

The youngest and lankiest looking CIA member looks between the Doctor and the others, and then steps gingerly over to the edge of the pit, peering down.

“Well, I’m not going down _there_.”

He looks back at the others.

“Class D is just Disposal, bodily recovery encouraged - but not mandatory. So, that’s the brief completed.”

“What about the Doctor?” Asks the old, plummy agent - Tecpil-something-or other.

“Can’t do anything without a warrant.” Sniffs the other one. “I think we can call that a cycle.” He starts back into the trees, and the lanky one follows, cringing each time the ground squelches under his feet.

“Perhaps another day, in a finer field then, Doctor?” The old agent says, inclining his head.

“With all the appropriate requisitions and signatures.” The Doctor replies, with an awkward wave.

“Oh,” She adds suddenly as he turns and leaves. “The Rani’s dead, by the way.”

“Are they now? I’ll put it in at headquarters.”

“See that you do!” She shouts to his back.

The Doctor gives it a minute or two, until she can no longer hear their complaining and dinner discussions, and then runs over to the hole, lying on her belly.

“They’re gone!” She shouts down.

There’s a snapping of twigs, and the Doctor turns her head to see the huge man emerging into the clearing again.

“How did I do?” He asks pleasantly.

“You should be a performer, Gabe!” Mairead shouts from inside the pit. 

“Sorry about the thing with the hole,” Gabriel says, looking nervously between the Doctor and the dark depths of the pit. “Hope it wasn’t too bad in there, but I had this sudden thinking that they might want to take your body back to their King or whatever, so…”

“Nah, that was great! Didnae think about that. An’ aye, it’s boggin but made for a soft landing, eh?” Mairead replies. “But uh, how do I get oot?”

“There are some little gaps in the sides that you can climb up. Me and Samael used to use it as an emergency bolthole.” Gabriel suddenly looks at the Doctor. “Uh, Samael was my old drinking buddy.”

“S’alright Gabe, the Doctor’s good.” Mairead pokes nir head out of the pit, covered in decomposing leaf litter. The Doctor offers nem a hand, and - surprisingly - Mairead takes it to help haul nemself out.

“Don’t suppose you could try this again for the horse thief? You did great in rehearsal.” The Doctor asks Gabriel, who gives her a ‘Sure, why not’ sort of head tilt.

“Right. Yur TARDIS nearby?” Mairead asks the Doctor. Gabriel blinks and furrows his brow a little, as if trying to work out what ne’s saying through the accent.

“Aye- I mean, yeah, she’s just over there.” The Doctor gestures into the trees. “Somewhere…”

“Good. Well. Jog on.” Mairead says, and points her thumb in the direction the Doctor pointed. Gabriel gives her a shrug and an eye-roll as if to say, ‘I get this all the time’.

The Doctor looks between nem and Gabriel.

“You know it’s a big TARDIS. And a bigger universe.”

“Aye. Tha’s how space works. You went t’ the bloody Academy for this.”

The Doctor tilts her head towards the - hopeful location of the TARDIS.

“You could come with me.”

“Or you could drop dead.” Mairead suggests with a toothy grin, but there’s a hint of warmth just under the aggression.

The Doctor nods understandingly, and without another word, she heads into the trees to find the TARDIS, to leave nem in peace.

  



	20. The Invaders  (G, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there’s a humdinger of a situation.

* * *

  


There’s a hamster in the Doctor’s coffee mug.

Thank goodness she’s back on the instant, or that would have been quite nasty.

The little rodent blinks coffee granules out of its eyes, and raises its paws to wipe along its head. It’s very cute.

The Doctor tips the mug over, and the hamster comes sliding out onto the sideboard.

It has a curiously patterned body that seems to shift a little even as she watches, turning from a mixed orange and white tortoiseshell, to the colour of the coffee granules scattered around it. She wants to explain that camouflage isn’t the best idea when you’re taking up residence in something that’s regularly filled with scalding hot water, but there’s something about the way that it tries to chew the handle of her mug that makes her think it might lack the capacity to understand.

She tries anyway of course, as she searches for some old bits of dried fruit for it to eat. You never know.

The Doctor picks out all of the chocolate-covered raisins from a bag of Rory’s old trail mix and crams them into her mouth with one hand, while tapping on the TARDIS kitchen screen with the other.

“Why’zit called’uh’ _Hum_ ster?” She asks with her mouth full.

On the sideboard, the ball of fur, now turning a rather fetching pastel pink, blue and white, starts to hum a perfect A Flat.

  


* * *

  


There are actually quite a few Humsters in the TARDIS kitchen.

The Doctor thinks it’s probably from dealing with the smell of sulphur on Nabia - the door was open quite a long time. She managed to brush out most of the unfortunately scented sand, but she never did check for strays.

Joining A♭ are six others - who she swears weren’t there yesterday - that have taken up a shared residence in her cereal bowl.

They’re humming in full chords now, four different ones: E, A♭ and B; B, E♭ and F#; C#, E and A♭; and A, C# and E.

At first it’s like having a tiny melodic wolf pack, one humming and setting the others off. Then the ones that aren’t humming start squeaking what she can only describe as vocals.

Less than three hours later, they’ve composed a medley of Don’t Stop Believing, Can You Feel The Love Tonight, Barbie Girl, and a whole host of other songs she doesn’t recognise.

  


* * *

  


More than seven. There are definitely more than seven.

Just looking around the console she can see there’s at least nine, and that’s not including the one she tried to press instead of a button, which honked a low G in an offended sort of way and jumped off onto the floor.

They’re incredibly sturdy, but she’s still worried she’s going to step on one, to the point she’s taken her boots off. The Doctor’s not sure how she feels about going barefoot and even less sure when sharp little claws skitter across her toes.

They might be doing it deliberately to get a high D out of her.

But if she asks A♭ very nicely - with a complement on how pretty her camo choices are - it turns out that they’ll do Spice Girls on request. So on balance…

  


* * *

  


Infestation is such an ugly word.

But it is all getting a bit out of hand.

On Day Three they’ve taken over her bathroom, and she’s brushing her teeth to the accompaniment of what she believes is a falsetto arrangement of Hell’s Bells. She nearly spits on the lead vocalist.

On Day Four she’s pulled apart an entire panel of the console to replace the axial pulse convertor, only to find the noise is actually just a Humster with its head stuck in the molecular transference pipe.

Day Five proves to be the breaking point, when the Doctor experiences the alarming sensation of putting on a bra to find something alive and wriggling in it. Reflexively, she grabs the Humster and hurls it into the hall, where it goes through several pitch changes, until it’s a C# when it finally spins to a halt.

The Doctor picks through a sea of multicoloured Humsters all the way to the kitchen, and finds A♭ lying on her back in the cereal bowl, cheeks bulging with dried coconut that some of the other Humsters are bringing to her.

As the Doctor approaches, A♭ stands up, disgorges her cheek pouches in a slightly nauseating sort of way, then stands on her back legs and makes a tuning noise, gathering everyone’s attention.

With a little paw-gesture, the surrounding Humsters start humming ‘Stop Right Now’.

“No, no, very nice, but not why I’m here.” The Doctor says loudly, despite her sudden urge to let them carry for a few more songs. 

The Humsters fall silent.

A♭ looks puzzled, and the Doctor bends down to her level, putting her arms on the counter and resting her head on them.

“I think this crowd’s getting a bit big for my stadium, don’t you?”

A♭ cleans her ears cutely, and then squeaks at the nearby Humsters.

Twenty-one of them arrange themselves in a long, militaristic line. Their coat colours change to black-and-white, patterns swirling, until the patches along their backs form letters.

**T-H-I-S-I-S-A-H-O-S-T-I-L-E-T-A-K-E-O-U-T**

A♭ rubs her whiskers with her paws, straightening them, but her black eyes are open and focussed on the Doctor’s.

“Take _over_ , surely, unless you’re ordering me to get pizza. Would you like pizza? Don’t imagine it’s good for your digestion, but-“

A♭ stops her grooming and peers at the last two Humsters, then she squeaks at them until they change their markings, and a small confused looking one is dragged over to provide the last letter.

“Do you know why pirates are called pirates?” The Doctor whispers to the little Humster. “Because they arrrr…”

The little Humster doesn’t laugh.

The Doctor turns more sternly to A♭.

“Would I be right in assuming this is an invasion?”

A♭ raises a paw, and there’s a sudden familiar chorus.

**_Hum, Hum, Humm, Hum-he-Humm, Hum-he-Hummm. Hum, Hum, Humm, Hum-he-Humm, Hum-he-Hummm._ **

“A Flat - may I call you Anakin?”

She squeaks.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  


* * *

  


The noise is unbearable.

But luckily for the Doctor, she’s got ear defenders.

She can feel the Humsters vibrating through her gloves, as she picks them up and bends down to deposit them gently out of the door and onto Nabia’s unfortunately-odoured desert. This time she’s parked the TARDIS hovering about a foot above the ground. Not making that mistake again.

It only takes about an hour. They’re curious little things, and seem to want to stay in their bands, and eventually they’ve all been dropped - or carefully swept - out of the door.

The Doctor runs a scan to be sure.

CURRENT OCCUPANTS: 

  * DOCTOR, THE (TIME LORD, GALLIFREY, NEW-ERA-OF-RASSILON 53.22)
  * BRUXIKAUZ (HOUSE SPIDER, EARTH, 2017 OCTOBER 16)
  * DEREK (CREDIT SPIDER, NEW EARTH, 5.5/豈/8,6)
  * JORDAN (HUMSTER, NABIA, १९९८:०३:४६)



“So, not Anakin after all then.” The Doctor says, removing her ear defenders.

The blue, pink and white Humster squeaks from her place on the console.

“It’ll be alright. You’ve got quite the ensemble now, with an excellent range - both vocals and genre. Go and find some annoying singing Chipmunks and beat them in a battle of the bands.”

Jordan clambers up onto her hand, slightly dejectedly.

“I’ll be cheering for you.”

The Doctor gives her a piece of dried coconut that she shoves into her left cheek, and she seems to perk up a little.

Slowly, the Doctor walks over to the door, and bends to place her on the sand. Then she takes the box of trail mix and puts that outside with them too.

Jordan climbs up onto the box, and makes her A♭ tuning noise, and the Doctor waves goodbye to the Humsters, to the sound of ’Say You’ll Be There’.

  



	21. The Dark Figure  (T, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything counts.

* * *

  


The Doctor has bad days.

That's not actually anything new, her old selves did as well. 

The Twelfth with every sense on fire - air on his skin painful, and clothes painful, just _existing_ inherently too much. The Eleventh and talking to himself, to people not there, unable to remember where the real person ended and his fictions began. The Tenth and lying for days like a stone or whirring into a frenzy when there was no-one around to stop him. The Ninth with memories playing out again and again - smells and sounds too real in overlarge nose and ears.

It starts to get foggy before that. She can't remember how their mind used to work. But doubtless they all had something too.

For her, it's the things that she's not thinking about yet.

She'd address it, but then she'd have to think about it.

You see the issue.

  


* * *

  


If there was another person on board, they'd ask her why she's having her 10am coffee at midday.

They might ask her other stuff first.

The Doctor would say 'great things take time' - _no, try again_ \- 'the best things in life take time', and her companion would nod.

Then she'd pour the thirty-eighth cup of coffee down the drain, because she can't make the spoon clink against the mug in the right way.

The kettle boils. 

Coffee, spoon, 1; Sugar, spoon, 1-2-3; Syrup, spoon, 1-2-3.

Stir, spoon, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-tap on the side.

That's it. 

She's done it. It's perfect. It's _right_.

But it doesn't cancel out that it's cup thirty-nine, so she pours it away and hopes that she'll have just as good luck with number forty.

  


* * *

  


The clock ticks over to 1pm.

The Doctor has to make a split-second decision.

The TARDIS has changed all digital clocks to analogue ones today, even on the computers, so the number isn't there.

But it flashes green in her vision anyway.

She can either give up now; or carry on, but not drink it for the next hour anyway, even if it's right.

_Never cruel, never cowardly, never give up, never give in._

No, no, no, that's not what that means!

But it doesn't matter, and she tries to send apologies to the TARDIS as she recycles everything the Doctor pours down the drain back into its component parts.

The pressure in her chest bubbles up until she lets the words out, and saying the vow becomes another nonsense step in her waste of an hour.

  


* * *

  


Thirty-five minutes past two.

It's a good cup of coffee.

It takes her about forty-nine seconds to drink it.

  


* * *

  


This body is number fifteen. 

That’s the truth, the fact, the objective reality. 

There was a big to-do about it and she got a new set of regenerations from someone because…because…

It was a Christmas present.

But she isn’t the fifteenth. She’s the Thirteenth. And no amount of objective reality can change that.

  


* * *

  


On the bad days, the TARDIS helps to make sure everything is right.

The right length of corridor, the right amount of lights on a wall, the right number of tools in a toolbox.

Until the feeling of rightness shifts.

See, the number of tools is fine, but now the number of metal ones is wrong if you include the screws. Sure, there are enough lights on the walls, but there are too many panels between them. The length of corridor is fine if she walks, but if she skips on every third step, now it's too short.

Once when she's double-checking the position of the dials and gauges on the console, she feels the TARDIS shift between blinks, trying to keep up with the feelings of right and wrong. When the feeling of disequilibrium and panic subsides, she has to recheck it forty-nine times. The TARDIS doesn't attempt a live-update again.

  


* * *

  


Seven cancels out thirteen. Light and dark. Matter and antimatter. She wonders what would happen if she met her Seventh self. Maybe that would be the meeting of minds that finally blows the universe apart.

  


* * *

  


Occasionally the TARDIS stops her from going on adventures. She pretends she doesn't, but she does. Conveniently breaks down, or takes her to _nice_ places. It's overbearing, even though the Doctor knows she's just trying to take care of her. But sometimes she wants excitement - not a planet covered in flower-fields that feels like the equivalent of being sat at the back of the classroom with the safety scissors and glitter.

"Just a quick wander around, then I'll be back, same as I always am.” The Doctor says, punching in coordinates, throwing levers and adjusting controls - tweaking them back to something better when they've served their purpose.

The TARDIS makes no reply, but they land neatly and - according to the screen at least - accurately.

"Seven o'clock on the Seventh of July, Seventeen-seventy-seven. What could go wrong?" The Doctor says brightly.

The engines power down with a hiss.

  


* * *

  


It’s not being superstitious, it’s just giving her the best chance of success. Good date, good time, if the flap of a butterfly’s wings are supposed to cause hurricanes, then exiting the TARDIS on the right number of steps from the console might save someone’s life. She has to take a few goes at it, but she gets there. It’s all going to be fine.

Then she remembers she hasn’t checked the levels of the gauges in case she brings somebody back and there's a fatal time ram, so she has to go back and do it again. It’s probably going to be fine.

Then the wall of the chocolatl warehouse she’s landed opposite has a pattern of red-then-brown bricks and she has to count those, her brain’s only explanation, ‘cus you’ve gotta’. It might not be fine.

The Doctor looks back at the TARDIS.

“I am going to go and find something interesting. I might be back late.” She says loudly, and strides out of the dark alley.

There. Now it will have to be fine.

  


* * *

  


She’s learned something new today: Chocolate is quite poisonous to Bonzoganes.

The Doctor manages to convince the aggressive reptilian to board their ship and never come back by getting everyone in the local Chocolate House to throw their cocoa at them - which the patrons seemed to find quite liberating, while the owners shouted that it was ’proof that demons are driven _out_ by chocolate, not invited in by it’. They never really got over Charles The Second threatening to shut them down a hundred years ago.

Unfortunately getting rid of the bomb the Bonzogane planted proves less simple. Mostly because she has no idea where it is, and the unknown time constraint is incredibly stressful. 

The Doctor stands between the warehouse wall and the sea, closes her eyes, and tries to think.

If she was an angry chameleon, banished from her home-world, and wanted to take over an established planet single-handed, what would she destroy first?

She could destroy the whole planet if she wanted to. Go back to the TARDIS, press a few buttons, put up the shielding and release a blast of antiparticles and watch the entire causal nexus shatter into powdered mirror glass.

Her eyes snap open.

She wouldn’t though.

She wouldn’t do that.

She _could_.

But that’s not the point - she wouldn’t. She’s reasonable, rational, capable of thought. She wouldn’t do that.

Suddenly she has to prove it to herself. There’s no time, there’s a bomb about to go off, but she can do this quickly.

The Doctor turns around to count the bricks. 

And immediately she knows where the bomb is.

  


* * *

  


There’s a man guarding the warehouse, and only one entrance. He seems to think her quite mad when she tells him his wall is fake.

“The wall on the left side- your right- the side facing the sea has fewer bricks than the one facing the alley, but they’re the same size - it’s impossible, because it isn’t real, it’s just a camouflaged barrier trying to make you _think_ it’s a wall - I’ll prove it!” The Doctor shouts, trying to peer past him.

The man narrows his eyes at her.

“Are you countin’ your words?”

“No, what would make you think that?”

“You twitch your fingers like you’re usin’n abacus.” 

“Please, let me in for seven minutes. Then I’ll leave and you won’t have to see me ever again - seven minutes.” She tries to keep her fingers still this time.

“If you make off with anything…” He says, apparently deeming her too much work for a Monday evening and steps aside.

“Nothing you’re going to miss at least.” The Doctor whispers, and runs as fast as she can towards the hidden bomb.

  


* * *

  


Her Ninth self understood fear, and what it could make of good people. Her Tenth jumped into experiences with both feet, regardless of what might lie at the end. Her Eleventh turned deep, bitter loneliness into warm, sweet, kindness. Her Twelfth could twist overload into alertness, and the ability to navigate in a world gone dark.

There are facets to these things.

  


* * *

  


The Doctor has bad days.

And she has good days.

Occasionally, they’re the same ones.

  



	22. The Intergalactic Family  (G, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor has a taste of the domestic.

* * *

  


Family is a difficult concept for a whatever-the-word-for-someone-like-her-is.

But the Doctor can still appreciate it.

Bonds of parents and children, the care in raising someone, people being generous and looking out for each other, making rituals, sharing food, creating homes, even including other species because they have so much love to share.

She's a big fan of love.

  


* * *

  


The Doctor meets Für-Elise - named for the full title of her mother's favourite piece of music - on a little backwater moon-colony above Augustus, in the Claudian System, on the furthest arm of what is still technically the Caibel galaxy.

The Doctor has not invited her to come with her. The girl is reckless, over-confident, refuses to follow instructions, and has a questionable moral compass.

And she's three.

"So what do you think?" Green asks the Doctor, hands on her hips.

The Doctor appraises the little one as she attempts to climb into an evacuation crate.

"I'm still trying to get over the fact that you made her. Was it from a kit or..?" Green hits her on the arm.

"Come and help pack. I'll put you on something non-breakable this time."

Green, or Greensleeves as she most definitely does _not_ prefer to be known, is something of a new old friend. 

_Old_ to Green, because she hasn't seen the Doctor in six years, back when she was a scrappy fifteen year old, with far more noble priorities than mere adventure, who wanted to fix the systematic inequalities between natives and colonists and be the first person in three generations to complete her triple-stage education. 

_New_ to the Doctor, who last saw her six minutes ago, and figured what was a time machine for if not to skip ahead to find out if she finished her degree.

Green got a First.

The Doctor wonders if Elise should have gotten one by proxy.

She carries an armful of boxes out of the house, and sets them down besides the evac-crate, fishing the toddler out to make room.

"What do you think are some of the key factors that caused the brief socio-economic instability of Augustus, and what are some of the knock-on effects we're still seeing today?"

The little one peers up at her with brilliant amber eyes.

"Ellie.” She says, and waves a pudgy fist in greeting before sticking it in her mouth.

"Well," Green says, coming out with more boxes, "If Auntie Court hadn't offended the Zebilian consulate, then we wouldn't have been exiled, then my Dad wouldn't have chosen this colony for the exchange rate, then I wouldn't have gone to Monk Afdon Uni, and wouldn't have met you or Elise's father, so..." 

"So, who deserves a degree?" The Doctor asks Elise.

"Ellie!” The child pats herself with a wet hand on her dungarees.

"That's right. But I've only got a Freddo, so that'll have to do." The Doctor says, unwrapping it and handing it to Elise, who sucks on the chocolate frog happily.

"If you keep giving her all this sugar, she's going to be bouncing off the walls." Green berates, but smiles indulgently at them.

“They’re going to put her out for the flight anyway.” The Doctor says reasonably.

“Wish they’d put me out and all.” Green says, stretching her arms over her head until they click.

The action is familiar.

“The Zebilian consulate… Hang on, I think I’ve seen your Aunties. Wasn't your Auntie Court the one who put the ceremonial soup pot over the grand Vizler's head and nearly started a trade war in the Tri-Galactic area-"

“-While Auntie Grizelda screamed that her soup was ruined and why do family dinners always end up like that, yeah, that's them." Green confirms.

"Huh, small universe."

“You were there?”

“I helped get the pot off Vizler Churion’s head. Had to resonate it. She really jammed it on there.”

“Yeah, she would have.” Green says fondly. “He deserved it though. Trying to starve out the local Naratraivids. Hope you took your time.”

“Oh, he was in there for _hours_ , I just _couldn’t_ get the frequency right. Got it off in the end, but had to hit it a few times for luck.”

Green wraps an arm around her shoulder.

“You are a terrible influence on my daughter. But then so are the rest of us, so you fit right in.” Green winks at her, and then bends over to start rearranging things in the crate to maximise space.

“I could just try and materialise the TARDIS around all this and save you the hyperflight.” The Doctor suggests.

“No, it’s fine. The Tsumazoars have been very kind, allotting us colonists space on one of their planets. Better go through all the official channels.” Green says, trying to roll up clothes to fit in any extra gaps.

“And you don’t want to get lost in the system. Haha. Get it? Because you’re moving to a new star system.” The Doctor says with a wiggle. Green raises her eyebrows. “You know, I’m really very funny once you get to know me.” Green's poker face folds, and she collapses into giggles, throwing Elise’s stuffed monkey at her.

  


* * *

  


The two arms of the neighbouring galaxies have been tangling together for some time.

In logical space-time terms, they’re hurtling at each other, creating gravitational whirlpools that smash entire systems together at incredible speeds.

In real-life and politician terms, eh, there’s plenty of time.

Finally evacuation procedures are commencing, and strangely enough it’s the Zebilians who have really come through. Always rather officious and logical, they sure can organise a re-habitation - even one involving thirteen-thousand star systems. They’re even trying to keep families together. Maybe the soup incident knocked some sense into someone.

A somewhat ironic side to this is that Green’s exiled family has been matched up, and so they’re getting to see each other for the first time in over a decade.

The Doctor meets Green - who’s been granted surface leave - on Thesulia Prime, in the arm of the Aeblain galaxy, as the ship docks to pick up the passengers there.

Apparently her Auntie is having a little trouble being convinced to leave.

She and Green walk to the end of the village, Green keeping on twitching and looking back over her shoulder at the ship.

“Elise is fine, she’s dead to the world-”

“Don’t!” Green squeals.

“-Asleep! Asleep. She’s very asleep, and she’ll be just fine.” The Doctor reassures her, wrapping an arm around _her_ shoulders this time, and steering her onwards.

“I should have brought her with me - what if they take off?” Green says plaintively.

“Then I have a Police Box that moves in time and space, and can set you down right next to her before she’d ever know you were gone. But they won’t take off, there are at least two hours, and they know who you are, what you’re doing, and that your daughter is on board.” The Doctor grabs Green’s hand and shakes it, causing the bracelet on her wrist to slide up her arm. “That tracker isn’t just so they can ship you like a Royal Mail package - they’d come and find you first.”

Green doesn’t throw her off, but tucks into the Doctor a bit more, feeling small and twitchy and sniffly, like she’s hugging a rabbit.

“I wish my Dad and Uncle were here… I don’t even remember Auntie Grizelda that well.” She says thickly, as they try to sync up their walking speeds.

“That’s hyperflight for you - you hear lightspeed travel and it all sounds like it should be so instantaneous. They’ll get there eventually though, probably still in time to unpack the last of the boxes. Worry about yourself - you’ll have yours, then your Aunt’s, then your Dad and Uncle’s…”

“You’re not sticking around for that bit then?” Green teases, sniffing. 

“What do you think?”

“Just love me and leave me.” Green says, only half mockingly.

“Unless you asked me to stay.” The Doctor replies.

They’re quiet for a few steps.

“Would you? I mean I won’t, but still, honestly?” Green asks seriously. 

“Yes, I think so.” The Doctor says. “Might have to invent a decent coffee machine. Might have to invent coffee come to that, but yes, if you wanted me to.”

Green huffs with laughter, her hair tickling the Doctor’s chin as she turns to look at her.

“If I’d gone for you instead of Marcus…” She says jokingly.

“Then you wouldn’t have Elise.”

“True.”

“My wife would’ve loved you.” The Doctor says, and Green makes an intrigued noise. “Probably would’ve adopted you. And if you’re thinking that would make a relationship weird, well we don’t need to go into it, but let’s just say time travel makes fools of us all.”

Finally that gets a proper laugh out of Green, and the Doctor feels a bit better as a little farm cottage finally comes into view.

  


* * *

  


The soup is amazing.

“There aren’t any level three or up sentient creatures in here, are there?” The Doctor asks. Ten to one she’d keep eating it anyway though.

“Well, no-one knows for sure because she won’t share the recipe with anybody, but given her vegetable garden, and her lack of murderous instincts, it’s safe to assume not. If Auntie Court was still here, that might be a different story…” Green says, supping her own soup.

“Do you like?” The old woman asks sharply.

“Yu’s ma’am.” The Doctor says, mouth full.

She jumps as a ladle whacks against the table next to her.

“Auntie!” The woman commands.

“Yes Auntie.” The Doctor blurts, swallowing quickly. Green snickers.

Auntie Grizelda manages to force two more bowls down her, while Green gently tries to convince her Aunt to leave. Most of her belongings are packed away - the extra tableware had to be fished out of her single small crate, but it seems like she’s having second thoughts. Staying here and making scrumptious soup apparently feels like a better option than going to the evac-ship.

“You, child, open your mouth.” Auntie Grizelda says, rapping the Doctor on the shoulder with the ladle.

She obeys automatically. Something sweet and fruity and soft is placed in it, that rings against the flavour of the soup. It’s sublime.

A hand clumsily pats her cheek.

“Aw, how come I don’t get one-“ Green complains.

“You will get date when you learn to appreciate fine soup!”

“So that’s what I’ve been doing wrong…” Green mutters under her breath. To Auntie Grizelda she whines, “I said it was good!”

“ _Good_. Pah!”

She shoos them into the garden like a couple of errant children while she washes up, complaining about them getting under her feet. 

The Doctor casts her eye over the vegetable patch. She doesn’t know the first thing about farming, but this almost makes her wish she did. Everything seems in the process of growing and thriving.

She looks at Green, who’s picking her way around the tilled soil, to a large white stone in the opposite corner. 

There’s something incredible about bringing life, caring for it, helping it blossom and flourish. Auntie Grizelda and her plants; Green and Elise. She hopes they see that.

The Doctor makes her way over to Green, who’s running her hand over the great quartz bolder with a gold engraving.

_Auntie’s Municipal Court_

_“Fine man, crazy man, he can't see._  
_Sound of the sunset, sound of the sea._  
_Why do the people always look at me?_  
_Nobody can see that we are you,_  
_We are you.”_

Her previous self hums along in her head, and for a second she’s sat on the College Green grass, supposedly conducting a lecture on ELIZA and computational language processing to students dressed in garish colours, with a guitar beneath her hands.

“Someone a fan of the Monkees?” The Doctor asks, and Green smiles.

“My grandfather.” Green answers, and looks up at her as if expecting her to have understood something. “The musical names? Grandpa named all of his kids after Monkees songs: Zor and Zam for my Dad and Uncle - they’re twins, and Auntie’s Municipal Court for his daughter - my Aunt.”

“What if your Dad hadn’t had any children?”

“Well, that’s why she was my Auntie Court, not Auntie Auntie.” Green says with a grin. “When my other Auntie married her, she changed her name to fit in.” She says, tilting her head back to the cottage. “Your Auntie Grizelda. I always wondered if that meant she had a soft spot for me.”

The Doctor watches the old woman washing up through the window. Must be nice having family traditions. Other than running away at least.

“Dad decided to name me something classical, after Gamma.”

“What was her name?”

“Gamma Chop.” Green says, pressing her lips together to suppress a smile. She glances up at the Doctor again. “Chopsticks.”

And completely inappropriately, they both end up doubled over with laughter next to the memorial.

“See,” Green says, hiccuping back to normality, “Für Elise doesn’t seem so weird now, does it.” She suddenly looks back over her shoulder, towards the ship, the last of the humour sliding off her face. “Do you think she’ll come?” Green asks.

The Doctor looks back through the window. Auntie Grizelda doesn’t seem offended by their laughing, but walks away when she catches the Doctor looking at her.

“She doesn’t want to leave all of this.” The Doctor says, stating the obvious. Green nods.

“Can’t bring the garden.”

There’s a creak of the front door, and a clunk of bowls being put into a crate. Then the old woman rounds the corner, and waves a walking stick at them.

“They pick me up - I not walking all that way.”

Green gasps with delight and runs towards her, vaulting over the vegetables.

No. 

_They_ can’t bring the garden.

  


* * *

  


It takes six trips to move it all, plus one extra trip just to be sure she’s got everything, and the TARDIS adds a whole new section to her databanks about growing vegetables.

The Doctor really hopes she’s got the right location. She’s not sure the squash will survive a move to a third galaxy.

By the time the ship arrives, the movers have come and gone, and she’s done her best to unpack the essentials.

Green, Elise and Auntie Grizelda are dropped off in a hover-van around nightfall, and the Doctor does her best to look as if she hasn’t already unlocked their new house, or the crates outside.

As they walk up the path towards her, she sees their eyes adjust to the dark as they notice the large boulder in the corner. Auntie Grizelda gasps and clutches her chest, and for a second the Doctor’s terrified she’s gone too far and she’s going to collapse.

“I might have swapped a few squares, I got confused in the middle, but-“ The Doctor gabbles, then the woman grabs her in a rib-cracking hug, sobbing into her jacket.

“No sad! No sad!” Elise shouts, waving her hands and struggling in Green’s arms, her sleepy face twisted up as if she’s not certain if this is a crying situation or not.

“No, no, no. Not sad.” Auntie Grizelda says, wiping her face with her shawl and stretching her arms out to Elise to stroke her and kiss her on the forehead.

The Doctor feels suddenly overwhelmed and finds herself staring at the floor.

“Alright, alright,” Green says calmly. “Let’s go inside, find our rooms and we’ll sort out everything else tomorrow.”

She unlocks the door, and immediately heads up the stairs to find somewhere to put Elise down for the night.

“I suggest the one on the left.” The Doctor says quietly, not moving from her place by the doorway, and isn’t sure if Green heard her or not. 

“MISTER MONKMONK!” Elise screams.

She probably did hear then.

After about twenty minutes, enough for a bedtime story or two - she put Draxiki Snuffkin Goes On The Shuttle and Atinari 5 Has Two Suns out by the lamp - Green comes down and joins her on the stoop.

“Is everything-“

Green holds out her hand to stop her, and stares out down the path, pressing her joined hands to her mouth and swallowing a few times before speaking.

“The flight was delayed, by a day and a half, because they couldn’t find where they were supposed to land. Elise woke up, because that’s when the seds were supposed to wear off, and she was…upset at being stuck in a seat in an airless cabin, and she’s never been on a ship before and wanted to go home. I think Auntie Grizelda was only keeping things together so as not to set off Elise even more. I swear she didn’t stop screaming for six hours straight at one point, and she’s only really settled down in the last few hours after we landed.”

The Doctor opens her mouth to speak, but Green shakes her head.

“You have no idea - none at all - what it’s like,” Green says shakily, “To be prepared for the tantrum of a lifetime when your toddler realises that everything has changed, only to walk into the exact same bedroom you just left behind.”

The stars twinkle down at them, different points of light in a different galaxy.

“I didn’t have time to finish the other two rooms, but all of the blankets-“

“Thank you. For all of this. For the garden. You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.” The Doctor says quietly.

Green seems to have got herself back under control, pats her knees firmly and stands up.

“Come on, I’m not having you sat out here all alone in the dark, you’re not a stray mutt - you’re family. Now I’ll go and grab the kettle and we’ll have a cup of tea.”

“I might have unpacked the kitchen already. I broke the red mug. And a glass.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Green says, giving her an exhausted, thankful smile.

“But I can get going if you want, leave you to it.” The Doctor says, looking away.

“And if I asked you to stay? Just to meet the other bad influences?” Green asks. “No, wrong question. Do you _want_ to?”

The Doctor hears the sound of Auntie Grizelda bustling around the kitchen, and Elise’s music box tinkling faintly from upstairs. She looks at Green who was going to right the wrongs of the universe without having to run away, and if her daughter’s anything to go by, she’s probably going to succeed.

“If you have the time.”

  


* * *

  


Family is a difficult concept for a whatever-the-word-for-someone-like-her-is.

But the Doctor can still appreciate it.

Bonds of parents and children, the care in raising someone, people being generous and looking out for each other, making rituals, sharing food, creating homes, even including other species because they have so much love to share.

She's a big fan of love.

  



	23. The Space Police  (G, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we fail to see people for who they are.

* * *

  


Turns out, it’s quite hard to use the console when you’re sat on it. But there’s not a lot of room to manoeuvre right now.

Somehow, the dimensional shielding has gone kablooey - an old Time Lord technical term - and the TARDIS is currently the exact same size on the inside as she is the outside. 

Which is one problem.

The other problem is the girl standing in her doorway. She might be an emergency trans-dimensional engineer, but the Doctor’s hopes aren’t high.

The girl speaks tentatively, looking at her sat like a frog among the levers and buttons on the console in her box half the size of a shed.

"Um, excuse me, are you a policewoman?" 

“That depends, are you a cop?"

"No." 

“Then sure, why not.” The Doctor says, looking back down and toggling a switch a few times in case that helps. It doesn’t. 

She looks up again to see the girl fiddling with her backpack straps and biting her lip.

“What seems to be the problem, Officer? Civilian. I’m the officer, you’re the civilian, that’s how this works. Good cop, bad cop. Except only one of us actually has a badge.” She fishes in her pockets and holds something out.

The girl steps forward and takes it.

“It’s a cat.”

“I used to wear it a lot, but I don’t think it works for me any more. Might still be lucky for you though, so you can borrow it.” 

The Doctor leaps off the console, and helps the girl pin the black cat badge on her school jumper.

“So… How can I help you?”

“I- I can’t find my Mum.” 

Lost Mum beats dimensional slip. Sorry dear.

“I waited and waited, but she didn’t come back, and Mum always told me that if there was trouble, I should look for a policeman or a lady and you’re both.” 

“Not really, I just look like one. Where did you last see your Mum?” The Doctor asks, contorting herself trying to reach the panel with the screen. 

“In the shop, but she’s not there any more, and I don’t know where she’s gone.” The girl says, looking outside. The Doctor cranes her neck round to see past her. Apparently she’s landed outside a supermarket. Eh, forget the scan, she can help someone _and_ replenish her sweetie stash all in one go.

“What’s her name?”

“I’m not sure Mum would be happy with me telling that to a stranger.”

“I think she’d be more worried about you getting into a stranger’s vehicle, but never mind. Do you have your phone?” 

“Mum says kids don’t need phones. I’ve got a tablet but that’s at home because I’m not supposed to take it to school.”

“Do you know your Mum’s phone number?” 

She shakes her head.

“Ok, and finally, are you a plant by a conman-slash-mercenary-slash-people-trafficker?” The Doctor asks. She’s trying a new thing called ‘learning from past mistakes’. It’s a work in progress.

“I’m not a plant, I’m a person.” The girl says, confused.

“We have that in common. My name’s the Doctor. Just the Doctor.” She says, holding her hand out. The girl hesitates, then shakes it.

“I don’t know if I should tell you my name.”

“That’s fine. Let’s go find your Mum then.” The Doctor says, and bustles her out of the TARDIS, giving the console a last apologetic shrug before shutting the doors.

  


* * *

  


“Ayesha.” The girl says as the Doctor sonics the sliding exit, unwilling to walk around to the entrance. “It’s on my workbook, so that means I can tell you right?”

“Up to you.” The Doctor says, peering around. 

She can feel the weakness in reality as soon as she walks in, like stepping onto wet sand that sucks at her heels.

“What does your Mum look like?” She asks, looking towards the fresh fruit and magazines.

“She’s wearing a… A red- no, a blue… I can’t remember!” Ayesha looks up at her alarmed.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll know her when I see her.” The Doctor says.

Only she won’t see her. There’s the irresistible tug of a parallel dimension, a wolf pulling her by the hand to Grandma’s house to eat her. And Ayesha’s mother is already in its belly.

In an instant, something is in front of her but isn’t. A ghostly claw tries to snatch the girl. The Doctor yanks Ayesha back by her backpack, but the apparition slides straight through her, and she doesn’t seem to notice.

Understanding bubbles up in her brain.

To tell her or not? She hasn’t got a plan yet. It’s probably best to wait.

“I think I know where your Mum is.” The Doctor blurts out, like a kettle releasing steam.

“What? Where is she?!” Ayesha asks, looking around everywhere.

“Well, you know in a comic book, where there are two pictures next to each other, and they’re the same world, but not the same world, because now the character’s moved. So it’s like that, except your Mum was grabbed by the bad guy in panel two, and now there’s two of her on one side, and none of her on the other.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, no that doesn’t make much sense did it?” The Doctor says, tapping her fingers on her leg.

There’s a little flicker in her vision as the thing makes another attempt to catch the girl, but passes through.

Ayesha doesn’t even blink.

But the Doctor’s a Time Lord, a well-travelled one at that, and she’s used to seeing things that nobody else does.

The Doctor looks around again. A sinking feeling starting to gnaw at her stomach and her eyes flicker up to the aisle numbers.

Suddenly she claps her hands, and it makes Ayesha jump.

“How about some sweets, those will help us think.” 

She strides off, and hears the clatter of school things bouncing in Ayesha’s backpack, and the slap of sensible shoes on vinyl as she hurries after her.

“Where’s my Mum?” Ayesha asks plaintively. 

“Here’s a better question: What sweets would you like? Marshmallows?”

“I can’t eat those, they have pork in.”

“They do indeed… How about a sherbet dip-dab? That’s what I’m having.”

Without waiting for an answer, the Doctor throws the paper packet at Ayesha, who fumbles but catches it.

“I don’t want sweets, I want to know where Mum is!”

The Doctor rips the top off her packet, pulls out the lollipop, gives it a twirl and shoves it in her mouth.

“And I want both things.” The Doctor says around the stick. Tastes of raspberry. She pulls it out of her mouth, dips it in the sherbet, and pops it back in again.

She heads quickly down the aisle, and Ayesha grabs hold of her jacket. 

“You haven’t paid for that.”

“We’ll scan yours twice.”

“That’s not allowed!” Ayesha pulls on her, making her stumble. “You have to pay for it!” She yells, looking disproportionately upset as all the rules of her reality collapse around her.

“Fine!” The Doctor shouts back, heading towards the self-checkouts as her brain whirls.

She rootles around in her pockets, while Ayesha sits with a thump on the floor, pulling her knees up tight and stroking the cat badge.

The thing shimmers through the air again, failing to get hold of her.

Eventually the Doctor finds some viable local currency, grabs the sherbet dip-dab from the child’s unprotesting hand, and swipes it.

**”Unexpected item in the bagging area. Please wait for assistance.”**

The Doctor kicks the machine.

“Don’t do that, just wait, someone will come.” Ayesha whispers.

“Will they?” The Doctor asks, turning to face her. Ayesha looks away.

“Because that’s why you came to find me, wasn’t it? That you waited and waited, but she didn’t come back. Nobody came because nobody’s here.”

The Doctor’s mind jumps ahead of itself, forward and sideways like a knight on a chessboard. She doesn’t know how to explain it, how to make her understand.

**“Unexpected item in the bagging area.”**

The Doctor throws the packet of sherbet to her, and it lands on her feet.

“Have it. Go on, have it.” She says.

“Where’s my Mum?” Ayesha whispers into her knees and doesn’t move.

“I’m _telling_ you.”

**“Unexpected item in the bagging area.”**

“Look,” The Doctor says, and pulls her own lollipop from her mouth. “What colour is it?”

Ayesha looks up.

“Blue?” She says, her voice going high and squeaky.

**“Unexpected item in the bagging area.”**

“Great! And what colour are they usually..?”

“I don’t know, we don’t have them at home.” Ayesha says, hiding her face again. “Where’s my-“

“They’re red!” The Doctor says, jumping and sending sherbet flying everywhere.

**“Unexpected item in the bagging area.”**

“Your Mum didn’t fall into another dimension - _you_ did!” She says excitedly.

The Doctor looks around the shop and out of the windows where there’s a sky that isn’t so much dark as it is completely blank. She spreads her arms out.

“ _We_ did, technically. No wonder the TARDIS has gone wonky, I’ve left most of her outside.” She steps backwards, gesturing widely. “This is why it’s all empty, why it’s all just a bit different - your Mum isn’t the one missing, you are!” The Doctor concludes with satisfaction.

**“Unexpected item in the bagging area.”**

The child suddenly bursts into noisy sobs, and the Doctor’s proud feelings vanish as if they’d never been.

_**WHAM** _

Something hits the Doctor hard in the side of the head, and she goes sprawling, cradling her throbbing ear.

She looks back for what hit her and sees not a claw, but a hand - glittering with gold rings - desperately holding onto the edge of the self-checkout, as if it’s an unstoppable force versus an unmovable object, and it’s _winning_.

**“Unexpected item in the bagging area.”**

The Doctor looks from the hand, to the crying child and back again, blinking rapidly.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She whispers. To Ayesha. To her mother. To the universe that doesn’t need to hear her explanations any more than this little girl does.

The Doctor pulls herself up, and tries to lift Ayesha as gently as she can.

“I found your Mum. It’s all going to be alright. Don’t worry. All over now.” She whispers, and carries her over to the counter. It’s not difficult. She hadn’t realised how small she was. “I’m sorry. You can keep the cat badge. I’m sorry.”

The second she puts Ayesha down, the hand lets go of the checkout and wraps around the girl’s stomach, this time finally keeping purchase on her, and yanks her away into the other dimension.

And that’s it.

It’s almost like they were never there.

She could pretend they weren’t. That this never happened. That she got temporarily stuck in another dimension, got the scanner working to find out what was wrong, and twisted the TARDIS back out of it again with no trouble. 

No need for the prickling shame crawling up her spine and nesting in her brain.

But she’s trying a new thing called ‘learning from past mistakes’. 

It’s a work in progress.

  



	24. The Prisoner (T, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which people are gone but not forgotten.

* * *

  


Room 28. That’s what it said on the chart.

The Doctor strides confidently past nurses and care assistants. Just slow enough to look like she’s allowed in here, just fast enough so that no-one gets more than a glimpse of her and notices her lack of lanyard.

Shouldn’t have even bothered asking at reception, should have just trusted the scanner and snuck in through a fire exit. This is where politeness gets her.

She passes Room 26 and quickly clicks the sonic a few times. For some reason her brain is insistent on telling her there are dead people under sheets in there. There aren’t, the buzzes are from her screwdriver in her pocket - not flies, and while yes, statistically people will definitely have died here, it doesn’t mean there are any here right now. They take them and file them away in metal cabinets. The memory makes her feel suddenly claustrophobic.

The Doctor stands outside of Room 28 for a moment, and questions whether this is a good idea or not. But Martin’s always known all of the right people, and she needs that local knowledge. Yes, that feels like an excuse she can believe in.

She raps on the door in Official British Door-Knocking Pattern.

“Am I getting out for dinner today then?” Asks a familiar gruff voice.

The Doctor opens the door and dithers, really wishing she’d planned this out better.

“Can I come in?” She asks the old man in a chair by the window. He looks up at her, squinting as if he can’t really see.

“Asking, eh? You must be new.” Martin says, but more softly. “Who are you then? Can’t promise I’ll remember mind, but we’ll give it a go.”

“I’m the Doctor.” She says, swallowing.

“Which one? Sorry, got a lot of doctors. Have we met before?”

She could just lie. It would be easier. But for once, she doesn’t want to.

“ _The_ Doctor. The lecturer formerly known as the artist known as Doctor Who. Played We Didn’t Start The Fire continuously for eight-and-a-half hours when we were trying to smoke out the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.”

Martin sits up and waves at her to come nearer. Close up she can see his eyes are so clouded with cataracts, she’s fairly certain he still can’t see her now.

“Say something else.” He says quietly.

“How long do you reckon we can lean on the cop van before they charge? If you won’t get us a smoke, at least play us a tune will you.” The Doctor says, starting to slip into Martin’s accent.

“Bloody hell.” Martin says, a little gone-out. Then he grins and puts his arms out. Always was a hugger. With less complaining than she used to, she leans down and he pats her firmly on the back. “You kept that quiet! Good for you, love.”

He releases her - “Grab a seat, grab a seat” - and she takes the hard plastic chair from the corner of the room and sits as close as she can without moving the tiny bare table. When she couldn’t see, she didn’t appreciate Nardole moving the furniture, and doesn’t imagine Martin will feel any differently.

“Now the voice I understand, but where’s your Scottish gone?”

“I can do Scottish.” The Doctor says, and finds her vocal chords cooperate. Somehow it’s a bit more Missy than her old self, and it makes her feel…something. 

“Good Lord, brilliant what they can do nowadays isn’t it.” Martin says, shaking his head. “If Doreen Grey had lived to see this, bless her. Not that she’dve done anything, loved her singing too much t’ve risked it, and she was a corker even as a tenor.” He looks out of the window, lost in memories, smoothing his patchwork rainbow blanket on his legs. The Doctor lets him have a minute before interrupting him.

“So, how did you end up in here? I last saw you chained to a petrol pump in Cabot Circus.”

“Yeah, thanks for the sandwiches by the way, tell your student her chocolate muffins went down a treat. Know it’s been a year or so, but you’ve got the internet now, so you can do that, eh?”

The Doctor can’t quite formulate a response and just makes an ambiguous Scottish-sounding noise. He’s used to her communicating like that.

“As for here, not much to tell. Couldn’t make it to the shops any more, no family, and I didn’t want to get friends involved - you know what that’s like. Went to the council, but apparently home-help isn’t set up for ‘my kinds of needs’, so they shoved me in here. Took loads of benefits bits-and-bobs away so even if I wanted to leave I couldn’t afford to, and declining their service means in their eyes I don’t need the help so-” Martin pulls a face and sticks his tongue out pretending to be dead.

“And how are they handling ‘your kind of needs’?” The Doctor enunciates, and Martin snorts.

“First thing they did was realise they could put me on the cheaper medication the size of horse pills in here, and then they could try and hold everything over my head til I snuff it. They’ve said, ‘Oh, we’ve sent all the staff on a training course - very expensive, you should be grateful’, grateful for you doing the bare minimum of personal development time and trying to guilt me about it? It’s shocking.”

"What about the other people? Nice?"

“I don’t know, don’t see much of anyone else. They try to conveniently forget about me in here, or say they popped their head round but I was resting when they’re doing group stuff. Even meals I have in here most times. Don’t want me and my _fluids_ around the old folks I reckon - training course or no training course, nothing changes. Was in the hall once, I sneezed and it was like I’d popped a bloody grenade, staff hit the deck so fast."

The Doctor forces a laugh. It's not really funny.

"You hear all these stories about homes being overrun with STD's - I think they’re terrified I’m gonna start banging everyone in sight, as if me and bloody Liz on the wall there weren’t the only old Queens in here."

"Thought you weren’t so keen on royalty."

"Eh, I’m not, but the girl on reception bought it for me cus they all figure that’s the sort of thing old army men like and it makes her happy to see it. And means I can make that joke."

The Doctor looks around the room. It’s empty and stark, no trace that the Martin she knows lives here. No records, or signs, stacks of flyers. 

“Loads of Daily Mail readers here of course,” No trace except for the man himself anyway, “We had a girl doing work experience here, lovely - all the work experience lot are cus they haven’t learnt to treat you like a walking-talking biohazard yet - I can’t remember her name, it’ll come to me. Either way she’s got me into the hall for dinner - told you, good kids - and is handing out the meals. Well Mary White goes nuts. “I’m not having this after that little - I won’t say what she said - has had her nasty grubby fingers all over it.” This girl looks as if she’s been hit in the face, basically has, and I lose my temper and start shouting that she’s as British as Mary bloody is, even if she weren’t it doesn’t make a lick of difference, and for god’s sake it’s a butter chicken curry not Lancashire word-ing hotpot.”

“Bet that went down well.”

Nurse Ratchet- Baisley to you, wheeled me out and said I was causing a scene and threatening the other inmates- _patrons_ , wouldn’t be tolerated. I’m eleven stone and in a wheelchair, but hey black man shouting at a white woman so back to solitary I went.” Martin finishes, waving his hand at the room. Probably did his heart good though - there’s a smirk of pride on his face. 

“Girl saw me later though - Meena? Something like that - and she’s in bloody tears cus they told her she has to expect this sort of thing if she’s going to work in this industry. I said she should raise hell every time - people died for her to be treated right. Bloody nightmare. Hate this place.”

This is the Martin she’s looking for. The Doctor leans forward in her chair.

"...So what would you say if I could get you out of it for a few hours?"

  


* * *

  


Sneaking out of the care home proves to be much simpler than she imagined, if not physically easy.

The Doctor catches the wheelchair on the side of a door and yelps an apology at him.

“Doesn’t matter, now hush up and eyes front, no talking.”

It’s like pretending to escort a prisoner. Blank face, look a bit bored and harried, don’t interact, and everyone just assumes you’re doing your job.

She parks him in a bathroom a moment and pokes her head around the corner to reception. Feeling less guilty than she probably ought to, she gives the computer a blast from the sonic, and the screen goes black. The receptionist looks confused for a moment, taps at the screen, and then starts yelling about losing two hours of work.

As she storms off screaming for someone called Jerry, the Doctor goes back and collects Martin, and they scoot off with everybody none the wiser. Sure they’ll be on the security cameras, and Martin’s going to get an earful when they get back, but for now it’s a balmy evening, and as they speed away, they both cheer at their successful escape.

When they’re sure they’ve gotten away clean, they stop by a cafe, and the Doctor shakes out her arms, while Martin sniffs the air.

“Don’t suppose you’re any better financed nowadays?” He asks. The Doctor starts searching her pockets. “Now you don’t have your guitar to sing for our supper.”

“Might be able to do a handstand. People like handstands right?” She says, discarding three sweet wrappers, a piece of touch paper, and a note she’s made at some point that just reads, ‘shoe?’ into a bin. Finally she pulls out something crumpled and orange, with a crow of delight.

“We can still get something for ten pounds right?” She asks. 

Martin shrugs.

“Dunno - inflation. Remember when tenner was worth two new LP’s?”

“Three at Plastic Wax.” The Doctor says wistfully. “Want to have a vegan bean wrap then? Or something else?” She says, looking at the menu on the cafe.

“I wouldn’t say no.” Martin says, rubbing his hands together.

She goes and gets them, and they eat outside, Martin snug under his leg blanket, the Doctor sat on her haunches and estimating the size of the streets. Then her mind leaps to the left and she starts estimating the size of a discarded trainer dumped in the side-street next to them. 

The Doctor gives her head a shake, really wishing she’d spent the money on coffee instead. 

“I’ll miss my dose.” Martin says suddenly through a mouthful of bean and lettuce. “Tha’s gonna be a bugger.”

That is going to be a problem. A problem that a cheap trick could solve though.

The Doctor’s eyes alight on the trainer again, and she remembers a note with the word ‘shoe’ on it. She plucks a small paper cup from inside the heel, and brings it over to Martin.

“Good thing I nicked these.” She says, passing them over, and he looks at her questioningly.

“When did you pick these up?” 

She shrugs, then remembers he can’t see.

“Dunno.” Technically it’s not a lie.

  


* * *

  


“So, why did you come pick me up?” Martin asks as they walk along the high street. “You’re not exactly one for social calls.”

The Doctor thinks about feigning offence, but decides Martin knows her too well.

“Where would you amass a protest?” She asks instead.

“Why, you taking up my mantle? Cus if we’re being honest you’re no spring chicken yourself. Or is it for something in particular? Why not College Green by the Uni, means you can get there easily.”

“Not me, other people. And no, if you were going to walk. Big crowd, lots of protesters- think more of an army really.” The Doctor says, trying not to give too much away. She passes as human with Martin, and for reasons she doesn’t entirely understand, she likes it that way.

“What are they marching for?”

“Not entirely sure.”

“Peaceful bunch?”

“Not entirely sure.”

“When are they- Not entirely sure, all right, I get it.” Martin says, waving his hand. “How about the park gates where they start the Bristol Pride march? they’re close, we can go and scope it out.”

“That would mean I’d have to push you up the hill.”

“Ah, but we’d get to go _down_ the hill afterwards.”

The Doctor wants to tell him that she’s a three thousand year old Time Lord, and is not weak to that kind of fallacious logic and promise of jam tomorrow.

But she very much is, so she starts pushing.

  


* * *

  


Martin’s right.

She knew he would be.

But she didn’t know he’d be right this quickly.

“You all right? I was only messing about, if you’re tired we can-“

“Hush up and eyes front, no talking.” The Doctor says sharply. She tries to find the wheel-locks without looking - her vision is still trying to process what it’s seeing and she doesn’t want to disturb it.

There’s a crowd of transparent people standing in the gates and stretching back into the park - a sea of indistinct grey.

She watches them mill around. Two start to walk up to them. They certainly walk like Diagrids, even though it’s hard to tell when she can’t see their distinctive colours. Other than that they look like humans.

“Martin, don’t panic-”

“Oh, it’s always like this when I go out with you.”

“-but there are…ghosts heading right for us, and while they’re probably not going to hurt us, I thought you should know.”

“Those kids are giving you way too much pot.”

The Diagrids come close, one supporting themself on the arm of the other. The Doctor puts her hand on the handle of the wheelchair, trying to mirror them, so they can see they don’t mean harm.

“Are you the Doctor?” The tired looking one asks.

“Yep that’s me. You told me that you were coming, but not where or when. Don’t worry, I worked it out though.” She says brightly. Not a threat, but a hint that she’s not to be underestimated.

“Do you intend to stop us?” The taller Diagrid asks.

It’s a complicated question.

“Uh, excuse me,” Martin says, causing everyone to start and look at him. “But you’re the demonstrators aren’t you? Now no-one tells me anything, and my eyes aren’t what they were, so would you mind telling me what it is you’re marching for?”

“We are marching to remember those who have died. A generation lost because your people saw fit not to interfere.”

The Diagrid’s arm tightens around its partner but its flash of anger seems to cool as Martin looks down at his blanket, and sighs.

The Doctor isn’t sure she wants to risk inflaming tensions, but wonders why they’re doing it now. The Diagrids Crisis is far in the future. Did their projection co-ordinates go wrong? They’re displaced by 4096 years. It’s a distinctive enough number to be a calculation error. If it is, then she only has to tell them, and they will probably understand the temporal reasons why they’ll have to stop - but then again, people don’t normally project their images into the past by accident.

“Are you going to harm anyone?” Martin asks.

“No.” The Diagrids reply.

Martin leans his head back, and looks vaguely in the Doctor’s direction.

“That’s alright then, eh? They can march?”

“Then a ghost army will walk through the middle of Bristol.” He doesn’t get it. Can’t see them. Doesn’t know they’re aliens.

“So. It's getting pretty dark. I'll give Paul a ring, get him to claim it as one of his stunts.” 

But then he’s got a point. No-one else will know they’re aliens either.

The Doctor looks at the big crowd of Diagrids. It doesn’t look like a trick to her, because she knows it isn’t. But current technology, Pepper’s Ghost, you could - possibly - explain this away. Humans love explaining things away.

“What if people don't believe that?”

“Then maybe everyone’ll learn a big lesson and this will never happen again, but I doubt it. Let ‘em march. It's a remembrance.” Martin says, smoothing the quilt on his knees. “Sometimes you gotta be allowed to be angry. Allowed to show it and have people see. A chance to make them remember. Else it locks you in like a prison - it turns inside and kills you slowly.”

The Diagrid leaning on the arm of its partner nods.

The Time Lords would have her hide for this.

A trainer with a paper cup of drugs inside it flashes across her vision.

But then what else is new.

  


* * *

  


They wheel up to the corner of the care home.

“Back to Alcatraz.” Martin sighs.

“I’ve seen Alcatraz. This looks worse.” The Doctor says. Weeping grey concrete and angles and everything but a stamp saying ‘Margaret Thatcher Approved’.

“I’ll take it from here.” Martin says, and she looks doubtfully at the wheelchair. There are no handgrips, no ways to steer it on your own. “I’ll call front desk.” He explains.

Feels a bit of a harsh way to leave everything. But then she always feels that about goodbyes. If goodbyes were nice, they’d be hellos.

“If you find any other reasons to stop by, you can.” Martin says. It sounds dismissive, but it isn’t. He knows she doesn’t handle social pressures.

Again, she can’t find the words, and makes the ambiguous Scottish-sounding noise.

“And if I’m not there, will you find Julian’s quilt and keep it somewhere. I- I don’t want this stuff to be forgotten. I don’t want kids marching in a hundred years for the same reasons with different names. You keep it. Or do something with it.”

Martin strokes the quilt.

“And if it’s the thing what kills-”

“I can sew.” The Doctor says. She doesn’t know if it’s true, but she needs him to stop. And to know that she will.

Things repeat. There’s not much she can do about that. But she can remember, and she can get mad about it, and she can interfere, and help others do all of those things as well.

Not saying anything about it, not remembering those lost, not _naming_ it, would be its own kind of prison too.

  



	25. The Grandfather (G, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which family is recalled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Companion: [Lee Price](https://archiveofourown.org/series/822834)
> 
> Can be read as standalone.

* * *

  


The Doctor holds little Lucy stiffly, and she starts to grizzle.

"I thought you'd had a baby?"

"I said I'd had _children_."

"I don't get it."

"Well, when two or more Time Lords respect each other very much, and are in good positions in their chapter - if said chapter isn't full - they might make a requisition to increase their numbers by looming a new member out of the chapter's combined genetic material."

"All of what you just said frightened me, even though I don't understand a word of it."

"I was a Prydonian. While I was still in my first body I was sampled and a child was created from some of my original genes. Became very high-ranking, which I was apparently supposed to be proud of despite having no input in their lives at all." She blinks hard as if remembering something painful, and the rest of her words tumble out in a rush, "Then much much later I had a sort of nearly-fully-grown half-clone on a warring planet which was basically how they did it in the Time Wars, just them with the Hath instead of Daleks, which scared the life out of me and she didn't survive anyway so-"

"Do you want me to take the baby?" Lee asks gently. The Doctor takes a deep breath and when she speaks again it's a bit slower.

"No. No. I'm alright." Lucy seems to relax too, and snuffles in her blankets.

"I'm sorry about your daughter." Lee says awkwardly, but she doesn't seem to be listening.

"I held Susan though. She was a Half, born out of requisition, the uh, old-fashioned way." 

"Susan's a nice name, not very alien-y though."

"Human. She chose it. In the same way I did. And you did." She meets his eyes for a fraction of a second, and he nods his understanding.

The Doctor smiles, crooks her arm around the baby a bit more, and strokes her nose with a finger. "The bluest blue eyes you've ever seen. Eventually they turned as brown as a Dustwhistler - you’d have thought she’d regenerated. I got to see her once when she was three days old, once when she was two, again on her eighth birthday, and then when she was fifteen and I stole a TARDIS and we ran away from Gallifrey."

"Ran away?"

"Mmm. She wasn't allowed to be a Time Lord - not with her background, even being the child of the- this important person, and she hated being in the army. So I... What did they call it? 'Enabled her desertion'. Or ‘stole’ her, depending on who you asked. I had a bad enough rap sheet as it was, adding 'nicking a TARDIS' and getting to do what I'd always wanted to do anyway..." She shrugs.

"Wow, and you'd only met her like four times?" Lee laughs, "You sound like the world's best Grandmother."

"Grandfather."

"Oh, sorry-"

"Grandfather then. Grand _mother_ now I guess," The Doctor rolls the word around her mouth again and screws up her face, "Eh, no, stick with Grandfather." 

"World's best Grandfather. _Universe's_ best." Lee corrects.

The Doctor smiles at Lucy, but shakes her head. "I really wasn't. Tried - I did try, but... She needed her independence and I wanted her safe and right next to me, even if that wasn't where she was supposed to be. We ended up in a war zone on Earth, a war zone with _Daleks_ of all things, and she was so _right_ there. Of course she was - running away from things only to end up being involved in them anyway is a family tradition."

"So she left you?"

"I locked her out of the TARDIS. Wouldn't let her back in, and dematerialised without her." She gives him a wry look, and he tries to arrange his face into something a little less shocked. "See, told you not to be so quick with those Grandfather awards."

"Was she ok?"

"Ok as a standard-span Gallifreyan can be, away from everything she'd ever known."

"Did you ever go back?" Lee asks, swallowing hard. 

The Doctor sniffs.

"I don't know how to feed her, maybe you should take her. Something to do with a bottle. Should know, sure I've done it before, but information after regeneration tends to be a bit random, fairly certain I can still juggle, but the guitar's gone - or vice versa."

Story time is over. 

  



	26. The Child  (T, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the meaning changes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story-Specific Warnings: Sexism and Issues Pertaining Hitherto

* * *

  


“I would like the veggie dinosaurs please. With beans.”

“Doctor, that’s the children’s menu.”

“Good point. Best double the portion sizes, and if I could get a triple shot of espresso, that would be excellent.”

  


* * *

  


Childlike. An interesting word. An interesting idea.

People imply it about her all the time: "Don't be such a child”, "You are but a mere child in comparison to me”, "What is this childish nonsense”, etcetera, etcetera.

The Doctor doesn’t see anything wrong with being childish.

What they call ‘naive’, she calls ‘optimistic’.

What they call ‘acting like an idiot’, she calls ‘having fun’.

What they call ‘an astounding lack of knowledge in practical areas’, she calls ‘exactly what they said about her at the Academy and not likely to change now, and besides who cares if she doesn’t understand taxes and dishwashers and how to fill out forms - she has a space-timeship and they’re all just jealous’.

It shows that it's a good thing. If the wrong people think it of her - say it to her as an insult, then that must mean she's doing something right. 

  


* * *

  


The Doctor stands there gazing at the light show. It’s beautiful, incredible, and there’s no hidden pain in it - just an aurora caused by a Delnerian ship shooting through the atmosphere to go home.

It’s the sort of beauty that makes your eyes widen and your lips part as a hushed little ‘wow’ forces its way out of you. What is the biological reasoning behind the sublime making your jaw drop?

The kind old woman who lent her the use of her shovel smiles at her, patting her on the back.

“Look at you, like a kid at Christmas.”

The Doctor turns to face her, mind still full of swirling colours, and catches the eye of the woman’s husband who’s been staring at her.

Her mouth snaps shut and she licks her lips in a sudden twinge of anxiety.

The man grins.

The Doctor vaults over the balcony and into the bushes below as the old woman gasps in alarm behind her. There will be other light shows.

  


* * *

  


The meaning has shifted. 

Everything does - nothing is stable, and what’s language but evolution made sound. The Doctor should know that better than anyone, and yet it still takes her by surprise.

Childlike.

People imply it about her all the time: “Such a pretty young thing”, “You’re a lovely girl”, “So sweet and innocent”, etcetera, etcetera.

She’s none of those things.

It makes something flare and burn inside her. Makes her want to show them the blood dripping off her hands, the gore under her nails, and let them know that she’d hardly notice a little more.

  


* * *

  


“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?

"You know there's something about being called 'girl' that's rubbing this three thousand year old Time Lord the wrong way."

"I'm sure I could figure out how to rub you the right way."

That’s a human for you. Tell them you’re an alien and your age gap would be counted in millennia and _whoosh_ , straight over their heads. 

Bill would smile at things she didn’t understand. Many of her students would frown. But it’s nearly impossible to make the majority of the human race even notice that there is something they might have missed.

“Girl, you are _impossible_.” 

Somewhere a woman laughs at her.

  


* * *

  


"You're pretty idealistic."

"Eternal idealist, fervent optimist and grounded realist. Any sort of hope, faith, or trust looks like ignorance to a cynic." 

The Doctor continues trying to fix the beacon with whatever bits of scrap metal she can find in her pockets. The sonic screwdriver is so stripped down, she’s afraid she’ll short-circuit it if she slips. Ethan categorically refuses to hand over his keys or phone. 

Letting him tag along was a mistake, but sometimes these situations bring out hidden depths in people.

"You’re spending all this time and energy saving these creatures that are going to die anyway."

"Why did you think I was called the Doctor?"

"To pretend you didn't waste five years of your life on a history doctorate."

…And sometimes it just confirms her suspicions.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing? That looks kind of complicated.”

Or they’re even worse than she thought. 

  


* * *

  


“Zumberons! On the roof! You have to run!" The Doctor's aware she's been shouting some variant of this for about a minute and a half - if they're still on the roof they have the dullest claws of any Zumberons that she's ever seen. But the people aren't moving, and this place doesn't have any of those fire sprinkler things. She daren't set off the alarm on its own, they'll know it's her, still won't move, and the Zumberons will be attracted to the initial sound location.

"Someone slipped her something?"

"Prob'ly just can't handl’ sauce."

“Bless her.”

They laugh and joke, a few men and more women look slightly startled, peering around like horses, but if the herd isn't moving, they aren’t either.

"There are aliens climbing into this building as we speak, please proceed towards the exit in a swift and orderly fashion!" She yells increasingly loudly, with just a frisson of panic in her tone.

"Alright, don't get hysterical, sweetheart.” 

Fine, new strategy then. Nothing wrong with taking Plans B through G. Except that all of those required direct confrontation, and she's a big fan of her teeth, eyes, limbs, and all the other bits of her that are easily removed by a Zumberon that feels backed into a corner.

The Doctor vaults over the bar. Pint glasses: strong, chemical resistant, refractive, human residue, heavy. Alcohol: sterilising, poisonous, flammable, fluid, depressant. Bottles can be: broken, played, used to carry different liquid, be an emergency vase. Peanuts - salt! Yes, either the blue, yellow, or pink Zumberons are poisonous - not the green, 'green is good' she remembers that one - and if she gets sliced, it might be emergency stations. Do they have ginger beer? Ginger ale? Good, that will help the detox. Or help her get hammered if there's no escape and she's about to have her head sliced off.

All of these thoughts occur before she's fully finished sliding over the sticky counter. She shoves things into her pockets, then takes off her jacket and uses it to help her carry more stuff in her arms. No-one seems to have the brain power or reflexes to stop her. Climbing back over no longer an option, she crouches and headbutts the bar flap open with a growl of frustration (and pain, but she'd sooner fight a gang of angry Zumberons than admit it - which makes this her lucky day).

The people still don't move anywhere as she makes her way back upstairs with her spoils. But they do boo her like a pantomime villain at the sight of her stealing their drink. So at least she has that going for her.

  


* * *

  


“I can help you. Must be tricky, being an alien girl all alone on a strange planet.”

“I’ve lived much longer on Earth than-“  


“I can show you around. Explain things. Our odd little human _customs_.”

“Busy. Not here for dancing. Looking for a gang of Temporal Pirates.”

"Maybe I can drive you around while we look for those guys, huh?”

“…I suppose I am low on time, and the TARDIS doesn't do short range that well."

"And afterwards maybe we could get dinner back at my place and I can demonstrate eating, and, uh, _eating_ …“

"Actually, if you could just lend me the car."

  


* * *

  


Automatically the Doctor feels the pressure to change things.

Jumping? Clapping? Giggling? They mean more now.

If she shouts, it's a thing. Glares, it's a thing. Cries, it's a thing. Every bit of emotional expression, or venting, or stimming around people suddenly seems to be monitored. How is she supposed to feel anything at all?

She does it all anyway of course.

Partially because she’s never been good at remembering social rules, and her self-control is low to minimal. 

But mostly because she really likes being herself.

There’s that child in her creeping up again. The urge to say no. To rebel. To disobey.

Yes, she’s childish. She intends to be whatever she likes, and she’s not about to let anyone take her personality away from her. 

  



	27. The Shapeshifter (T-M, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there's a mystery to solve.

* * *

  


The intimate little room’s door swishes open, and a person steps in, staring at the Doctor and the book in her hands.

“An Agatha Christie collection. Hoped it would give me some ideas. I hate murder mysteries. The real ones anyway.”

“Uh, I’m Mariya, or you can call me Mary.” The young woman stammers. “Sorry, we don’t get- I mean, I wasn’t expecting you to be a-”

“Currently the only option I would have to foist it off on is an army which is pretty keen on murder itself - particularly in this circumstance. I even went to Torchwood - phoned up the Times crossword line, kept on raising flags, ran out of ideas, recounted the entire incident with the banana, the sock and the Stretanarian laser tag set, but still didn’t find Jack - literally.”

“Torchwood?”

“Don’t suppose you know what happened to them? Means you’re stuck with me I’m afraid. So anyway, the body had purple lips, bloodshot eyes, fluid-filled lungs and veins broken behind the ears and down the jaw line, what does that lead us to ask?”

“How did you find a body? What did you do? Like you’re being serious right?” Mariya asks shakily. 

“Deadly; had a good look at them then knocked some bins over so someone would come and investigate; and I can only assume the TARDIS was feeling in a spooky mood.”

“TARDIS?”

“My ship, I’m an alien.”

“And murder is _‘spooky’_ to you, is it?” She says, voice quavering.

“Sometimes. And me being an alien is nothing to you, is it?” The Doctor replies cooly.

Mariya stiffens.

“It’s alright, I knew where I was walking into. Where were we? Ah yes, broken veins. Suxedin leaves very distinct traces, but these were also around the mouth, the face, the jaw. So…” The Doctor leans forward. “Mariya-Venom-Sacs-In-The-Tongue, somebody kissed her to death.”

Mariya looks sideways towards the door to their little alcove, making sure they can’t be overheard.

“Look, it’s not one of my lot. We’ve worked bloody hard to keep Zygals low profile, you think we’d want to risk it? This sort of work is our best chance at a good income.” Mariya looks back at her “Besides, we don’t do kissing or contact. You will still be paying for this, just so you know.”

The Doctor nods and leans back into the plush bench, thumbing the pages of her book where a beige and violet bookmark holds her place about half-way through.

“Don’t know if you do tips or-”

“I do if you want me to keep talking.” Mariya says, and her eyes glitter at the note the Doctor hands over, whipping it out of her book without looking. Mariya tucks it into her skimpy top, and the Doctor wonders if she’s underestimated the various uses of a bra.

Mariya stands over the top of her, straddling her knees, legs a hair’s breadth away from her, and the Doctor pushes further back as if the bench might do her the favour of swallowing her.

“Uh, I won’t be requiring any dancing or similarly related activities, thank you very much.” The Doctor gabbles in a slightly too high voice, aware that her hard grizzled detective schtick is falling apart around her ears. 

“Got to look like I’m working, don’t I?” Mariya says, smirking a little at getting the upper hand. “Come on then, what did you want to know?”

The Doctor immediately forgets everything she wanted to ask and desperately tries to grasp for something.

“Zygals?”

“What about it?” Mariya asks, shifting her weight from heel to heel, swaying slightly.

“Idea? Execution? Terrible name-”

“Oi.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re an alien on this planet, yeah?” Mariya says. “Now for my kind, you either you go through official procedures, get resettled and put with a random group, random rank, and odds on they’re from a different clan so you can’t even speak to them. Or you’re like me, who’s got nine hatchlings to look after, none of them mine, and half of them sick or can’t transform - you know what Stupid Human Ignorance Taskforce does to Zynogs?” Mariya falls still. “So you go off grid. You and me, we’re lucky enough to pass. Find work. Like at this place.”

Mariya’s eyes widen as if she’s suddenly realised what she’s said.

“Don’t tell anyone that. That’s-”

“Doctor-patient confidentiality.” The Doctor says, miming zipping her mouth. Everything gets more complicated when there are youngsters involved, and she doesn’t imagine a place like this looks too kindly on them, even if they truly aren’t hers.

“And that’s why you’re here?” The Doctor continues.

“Technically I’m here because the newbie never showed up.” Mariya says, gesturing to the booth. “I’m a dab hand at transforming, there was a costume going spare, thought I’d chip in. What do you want by the way? Young? Old? Fat? Thin? Man? Woman?” Mariya cycles through a few different people while the Doctor waves her hand to make her stop and settle back as she was.

“Beginning to wonder if the Sister’s regeneration elixir is just a Soylent Green of Zygons…” The Doctor mutters to herself, slightly nauseous. To Mariya she asks, “What did the newbie look like?”

Mariya transforms.

Well that makes things more complicated.

  


* * *

  


“You really shouldn’t be wandering around!” Mariya hisses, trying to block the Doctor off in the building’s narrow corridors without actually grabbing her. 

The two of them walk straight into a tall willowy woman, rounding one of the corners.

“Sorry, uh…” Mariya says, trailing off. Occupational hazard in a joint where the customer is always right, the Doctor supposes.

“Dory.” The woman finishes. 

The Doctor laughs. “Look, we found Dory.”

“Never heard that one before… Actually don’t think I ever _have_ heard it in here.” She drawls, “How old are you?”

“About three-thousand give or take a couple of centuries.”

“Ah, that explains it, they always go loopy after the first K.” Dory says, her shoulders dropping as she relaxes. Apparently she’s not much fussed with her alien-ness either.

Mariya clears her throat. They both ignore her.

“You have to come a long way to get here, not many places that specialise like us.”

“That’s me, serious kinkster.” The Doctor says brightly. The woman grins and snorts doubtfully at her in a way that reminds her of River.

“You even smell of vanilla.”

“It makes my hair shiny.”

Mariya clears her throat again, more loudly. The Doctor remembers what she’s here for and sticks her hand out. Dory takes it.

“But anyway, hello, my name’s the Doctor, and I’m here to investigate a murder.”

The grin slides off Dory’s face, and the Doctor hears a little moan behind her.

“Is it the ‘murder’ or the ‘Doctor’ bit? Honestly I’m not as bad as the stories make me out to be.”

Dory keeps hold of her hand as if she’s hoping to keep this moment paused.

“…Probably the murder bit worries me more right this second.”

“Good, you’ve got excellent priorities.” The Doctor says cheerfully. Dory still doesn’t let go of her hand.

“And what Mariya would do if I got caught at this kind of prolonged physical contact. Because then there’d be another murder.” Dory says playfully, as if desperately trying to pull this back onto a plane she’s comfortable with. The Doctor can respect that.

The young woman behind her coughs again. 

“I _am_ Mariya.”

Dory’s grin comes back as a grimace as she releases the Doctor’s hand.

“Excellent.”

Dory bangs on one of the wooden walls, and it bounces open, revealing itself to be a door. She pulls the Doctor inside, and Mariya attempts to follow.

“Could I just have a few words with Dory alone? No offence.” Mariya looks slightly unsure, but then nods, turning the corner and clomping up some rickety sounding stairs.

The room turns out to be a kitchen of some kind. There’s a rather elaborate distillery that’s bubbling and filtering along one wall. Dory’s busying herself decanting the contents of a conical flask into a whisky tumbler.

“Zygon moonshine?” The Doctor asks. Dory holds the glass out to her.

“You can try a sip if you want, but you won’t like it. Mind if I slip into something more comfortable?”

The Doctor takes the tumbler of light green froth, waving her other hand in a ‘go on’ gesture and Dory shifts into a pale, suckerless Zygon, the colour of a pink marshmallow - the new ones without the artificial colourings, but not the ones from the 80’s which she misses. Definitely not high ranking then.

She takes a slurp of the foam and wrinkles her nose. Dory takes the glass from her with a gurgling laugh, as the Doctor starts rummaging in her jacket, trying to find anything that might take the taste of it away, and crams a fluffy half-eaten chocolate bar into her mouth.

Dory downs the drink and pours another one, amusement clearly gone.

“What murder?”

The Doctor recounts what little she knows to Dory, who immediately looks exhausted.

“That’s that. We’re going to have to go. Could be a human dressing it up as a crime between us, could be a Zygon that doesn’t agree with what we do -enemies on both sides there - or could be some jealous little larva who followed Amita all the way here, but it’s not worth the risk. We’ll have send out notice and move.”

“Amita? Was that the new Zygon’s name?”

“Yes. I’m the one that arranged all this. It’s my fault.” Dory says, sounding close to tears, if Zygons can cry. The Doctor feels like she should know that.

Hoping she’s not breaking any house rules, the Doctor pats Dory on the arm. She’s still not good at this.

“It’s not your fault. Unless you’re the murderer, in which case shame on you for playing with my emotions, and you know, murdering someone.” This has the desired effect and Dory gives another gurgling laugh that sounds like a stream breaking through a stick-and-mud dam. “If I can identify the culprit, maybe I can save you some upheaval.”

The Doctor perches on a high stool and pulls out a pencil and the Agatha Christie collection, flicking to a blank page at the back.

“What are the names and general appearances of the other Zygons working at this establishment.” She says, trying to sound official.

Dory shakes her head.

“Data protection.”

“Come on, _seriously_? Murder.”

“I’m the one suggesting we get the authorities involved here, you’re a Time Lord, that doesn’t actually mean anything in the real world you know.”

The Doctor opens her mouth and then closes it again.

“Fine. What’s Mariya like then - in your opinion. I’ve met her, so that doesn’t count right?”

Dory makes an unsure noise and a wiggly hand gesture, but does at least answer.

“Mariya’s…difficult. But runs the joint so…” Dory shrugs.

“Difficult how?”

“Not like a killer or anything, just awkward. Difficult as a boss. Money does that to people. Always liked first pick of the bodies - what you look like. You had to hand over your face - your permanent one that you used outside - can you imagine what that was like? Seeing your face on someone else? Mariya could just step into your shoes.”

“Think that’s probably how a lot of humans feel about the whole thing.” The Doctor says casually, twirling her pencil and wondering if she should be writing any of this down.

“It’s just a part of life here - it’s not just Mariya, everyone changes depending on client, and sometimes it’s just too much effort to swap back. It’s hard work.”

“So even if I wanted to know what the others working here looked like, you couldn’t tell me.” The Doctor says and accidentally bites the eraser off her pencil.

“And honestly we don’t talk to each other much. We’re all from different clans, so most of us don’t speak the same language unless we know Japanese.”

“Is that what I’m speaking?” The Doctor asks. She’s really got to start looking at the scanner before going outside. Dory nods.

“Do different clans have different venom? Can you poison a fellow clan member with the same venom? Do we know which one Amita belonged to?”

“Yes, yes and no. Doesn’t matter which clan your from, there’s no natural immunity to it once it’s in the bloodstream. And we can’t just test everybody - besides, belonging to a clan don’t always work like that.”

“And I don’t have the body to test anyway. Even if I knew how to do that, and I’m not sure that I do.” The Doctor says, putting her pencil down on the table with a snap.

“Look,” Dory says, putting the glass down with equal finality. “I appreciate you trying to help, and trying to keep SHI- UNIT out of it. But there are real live Zygons at risk here, and I don’t think we have the time to be playing detective games.”

The Doctor nods - it is straying rather out of her area - and Dory transforms back into her human form.

“I’m going to go and do a count of everyone. I won’t tell them what’s going on, but I’ll put them on alert. Mariya’s not going to be happy with tonight’s takings anyway.” Dory says, looking up at the ceiling. “Maybe I’ll give her a warning first.”

Dory gestures around the kitchen.

“You can stay if you want, feel free to take anything that you find palatable. I’ll be back in a bit.” 

And with that, Dory heads out of the not-so-secret-from-this-side red door, and into the corridor.

The Doctor wonders just how many little hidden places there are in here. She’s always a fan of secret passages, and old places like this are usually full of them.

Picking up her pencil and absent-mindedly doodling on the end-paper, she tries hard to concentrate on what she knows, but the more she tries to think, the less she seems to be sure of. After ten minutes of this, she spends another ten searching for coffee to help make her brain focus.

At last the Doctor scribbles a note to Dory - ‘gon wan ~~b~~ dring’ - and decides to ask Mariya some more questions.

The kitchen door opens with a creak, and she steps out into the hall. It feels strangely quiet after walking around with other people - it’s all too still and silent, the wood warping beneath her feet sounding much too loud.

She rounds the corner to find a steep set of stairs heading to the upper floor. They squeak like she’s stepping on a family of mice with each step, and she has to clamber up on all fours they’re so tall.

At the top everything’s dark, except for a chink of light coming from a large room at the end.

For a moment she pauses and looks out of the window, down at the water churning in the tributary below.

The Doctor knocks on the door and it swings open.

The room is dripping in shining dark red blood.

  


* * *

  


For an instant, the Doctor’s hearts stop.

There’s blood on the rug, and staining the wooden floor in big red pools. It’s even on the walls.

A note is pinned to one with a bloody knife.

Slowly, the Doctor steps into the room, her brain whirring but as if all the gears are being filled with treacle.

How long ago did she see Dory?

She doesn’t have to get too close to read the note - slowly, haltingly, with anxiety making it all the worse.

_“I am sorry. It was me who killed Amita. I cannot live with myself and the dirty spoils that are the souls of those I have hurt. Everything else I leave to Dory, knowing that in those safe hands, my wrongs may be righted.”_

“Bit melodramatic don’t you think?”

“Don’t be disrespectful, I’ve just slashed my wrists and jumped out of the window into the river.” Says the person hiding in the corner.

The Doctor makes her way over to her, trying not to step in any of the puddles, the dye will never come out.

“Sorry to interrupt your moonlight flit into the night Mariya, but-“

The young woman shakes her head.

“Come on now, I thought you were supposed to be clever.”

Oh. 

“That’s why you didn’t know Dory’s name. It was nothing to do with changing faces, was it Amita?”

Amita smiles.

“It really was quite a lot to do with changing faces, but I get your meaning.”

The Doctor watches Amita throw her empty bucket of fake blood into the water below with a _plop_.

“So you killed Mariya and stole her face.”

“In fairness, she stole mine first.” Amita says, heaving a metal chest onto the table, and expertly picking the lock.

“Came out to meet me, throwing a bit of weight around, waving her status under my nose. Mariya said I could only work here if I let her have use of my body. I gave it to her. Couldn’t handle it when I slipped her the tongue though.”

“So it was for retribution, after she-”

“Bless you for thinking the best of me, but no, it was for the money. I knew she was loaded. Thought I’d be in and out a bit quicker, but still, it’s only been what? Four hours?”

The Doctor watches her check out the cash box, and feels slightly nauseous. Amita looks up.

“From what I’ve seen and heard, Mariya’s going to be no loss. No-one’ll be sad to see the back of her, and hey, in future the money’ll go to the ones that need it - that Dory doesn’t seem like a bad sort.”

“You saw her for less than a minute.”

“I’m a good judge of character.”

Amita hefts the metal box, testing it, and deeming it acceptable, she climbs onto the window ledge with it in her lap.

The Doctor grabs onto her wrist, tight.

“You don’t think I’m letting you go, do you? You committed murder.” The Doctor says dangerously, gripping her harder.

“So will you if you let all those kids die because I can’t get them help.” Amita says unflinchingly, something cold and hard staring out of Mariya’s eyes. “That bit wasn’t a lie.”

The Doctor’s grip loosens, Amita grins - cheerful and unrepentant - and with a deep breath, she hops out of the window to make a splash below.


	28. The Planet Eater (T, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are misunderstandings and understandings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story-Specific Warning: Some Darker Themes.

* * *

  


“No, no, no, this has all been a big misunderstanding, I’m not-”

“All rise for the cataloguing of the Doctor. Under consideration for classification of: Devourer Of Worlds.”

There’s a rumble like thunder as the arena of Gordians clamber to their feet. Tentacles. Feetacles.

The crowd of people waiting to be categorised behind her shift nervously.

Gordians desire their universe to be neat and tidy. Like with like. Anything they don’t understand, they haul in front of the Grand Processors, find a label for, and then teleport to file it to the appropriate location.

Personal input is not required. 

“Please, if I can just-”

“Silence!”

Or tolerated.

“This creature was found on Serapsis Prime. Report states that it was showing great pleasure after its consumption of a planet found in the Sol System, explicitly Sol-4.”

“That’s not-”

“-AND was complaining,” The Good Gord says louder, “That there were still bits of it stuck in its teeth.”

The crowd behind her shifts away as far as their shackles will allow, hissing and mumbling at each other. The Gordians simply nod.

“Is the request for classification as Devourer Of Worlds accepted?”

The Gordians ululate as one.

“Then categorisation shall commence.”

The teleport hums into life under the Doctor’s feet, drowning out her shouts.

“-Bar! Chocolate! I’ve still got the wrapper! Not Mars! It was a Mars BAR-”

**_ZHXIWOOP_**

  


* * *

  


The Doctor comes to, finding herself face down on a rocky surface.

Honestly she’d been expecting some sort of asylum filled with stellar-level mass murderers. Still might be possible of course. Maybe it’s an open air thing.

Without opening her eyes, she sticks her tongue out and sees if she can identify the rock she’s lying on.

Bit of iron. That chalky kind of calcium feel. General dusty texture. Sucks the moisture from her tongue. Feels like an asteroid.

“Why am I not dead yet?” The Doctor asks the universe.

“That sounds like an excellent place to start.” The universe replies.

The Doctor opens her eyes and looks towards the source of the voice, immediately wondering if there was something hallucinogenic in the rock that she missed.

It’s a tiger.

“Are you going to kill me?” She asks in a would-be casual tone.

“Definitely not.” The huge tiger replies, a gravelly echo below its words. Its mouth barely moves, but the collar at its throat lights up. “Are _you_ going to kill you?”

“Certainly wasn’t planning on it.” The Doctor says and looks towards the tiger’s paws.

“Then I’m pleased to have you here.” The tiger says, and rolls on its side. The Doctor follows suit, since she’s down here anyway.

“You’re a Hitchemian.” She says, folding her arms across her chest in a cub-like submission gesture, and kicks her way over, ruining her clothes with the dust.

The Hitchemian Tiger doesn’t move, except to roll more onto their back, and lets her nudge her face against theirs. She could hug their whole head and her hands would barely touch.

“That I am.” The tiger says, gently rolling back onto their belly and the Doctor slowly sits up. The tiger offers her one of their great paws - tridigital with two thumbs - and shakes her hand. “This is more my usual greeting, but thank you for a reminder of Hitchemus.” They say good-naturedly, and instead of a paw, for a flash she feels a violin bow, and velvet and linen on her skin, and the pressure of rushing water. 

Her hand is swallowed in theirs but held gently, and a courtesy reflex takes over.

“I’m the Doctor.”

The tiger pauses, and gives her a look, a membrane sliding across its eyes in lieu of a blink, so they don’t break their stare.

“That’s my line.” The tiger says. 

Then with a great growl, they laugh, and get to their feet with a slight spring. 

It awakens some old instinct in the Doctor’s head and she joins them in laughing - even if she’s not really sure what it’s for - and pushes the tiger, so they both fall over into the dust.

Then there’s nothing but leaping and pouncing, everything narrowed down to the pressure she’s creating and receiving, feeling a wince of the tiger’s muscles and releasing her grip, or working which way to squirm out of a hold.

After a few minutes, The Doctor is back to lying in the dust, the Doctor-Who-Is-A-Tiger’s paws and forelegs across her back in a pin she could easily escape from. The weight is pleasant though, and her ear is pressed against their chest, where she can hear a heart pounding away, an echo following behind it. She knows the tiger doesn’t need to do the same to hear hers.

“Two Doctors. Four hearts.” She says, feeling drained and lazy.

“All the better to love you with, my dear.” The Tiger Doctor rumbles.

“Oh that’s good, might have to steal that one.”

“My teacher was a fan of fairytales - tended to put us right in the middle of them - you can blame her.” The tiger says, the light from the collar blinking as it tries to keep up with refining their speech.

Some sort of alarm lets out a series of insistent beeps, and the Tiger Doctor moves off her, sprinting over to a machine a little way out into the emptiness.

It leaves the Doctor free to look around properly for the first time.

The light is artificial, rigged up out of dozens if not hundreds of spaceship lights beaming down on them, as if she were in the middle of a giant car park about to be beaten up by a gang of BMW’s.

Many of the ships have openings in them as if they were rooms in a house, large hatches through which she can see various storage locations or amenities.

She looks into one and finds a wide selection of food and a filtration system going to work on a giant tank of water. In another, she finds a pool - little surprise with a Hitchemian about - and in another she finds a library. Again, Hitchemian.

The volumes are many and varied, a few with paper, many more digi-slates and data drives with probably hundreds of books on each, all sorts of different languages and accessibility requirements - some for five hands, some for no hands, some which read out, some which analyse the best background and font size for the reader. But they all seem to be on similar subjects - self help.

“Are you still here?” Shouts a voice from outside, and she pops her head out of the ship door to see the Tiger Doctor pacing around, tail high and ears tilted back in anxiety.

“Up here!” The Doctor shouts, shoving her book back on a shelf in the wrong place, and sliding down the handrail of the metal steps to the ground.

“My apologies.” The tiger says, their tail dropping, “I was receiving an alert that a ship has breached my detection field. It will take about seven hours to get here at its current speed, but it may yet turn around - that does happen.”

The Tiger Doctor looks out towards a dark space in the sky, a gap between the ships and their lights.

“Where is here anyway?” The Doctor asks. “It wasn’t my teleport, so I don’t know. A Gordian categorising summit sent me here as a Devourer Of Worlds- Just a mix up with a chocolate bar.” She hastens to add.

The tiger nods and gestures for her to walk with them.

“A Milky Way?” The tiger asks.

“No, a Mars bar.”

“That would have been my second guess.” The tiger says, and makes another growling laugh.

The Doctor pushes her shoulder against theirs, and the tiger nudges back a little, but doesn’t let her instigate another play fight.

“Why do you know about twentieth to twenty-first century human chocolate bars?”

“I have an eclectic knowledge base.” The Tiger replies. “And I was once sent out to get some while my teacher was indisposed. Which was a mistake.”

They reach the end of the wall of ships where the gap is, and with the lights still on her she can’t see a thing through it - it’s like looking into an abyss.

“I would rather you don’t go the full extent of the walkway. Or spend too long. But I respect that it’s your choice.”

The Doctor walks out, and immediately the light becomes so muted she has to stop to wait for her eyes to adjust. The tiger sits and starts pulling at something beaded beneath their collar.

She looks out at the sky, and one patch of black never becomes any brighter, in fact getting darker and darker.

“Devourer Of Worlds.” The Doctor whispers, and watching her footing incredibly carefully, walks out along the jutting bridge to nowhere.

The black hole beneath is entirely silent, but her brain tells her it screams. Debris and even light itself being pulled into it.

She feels a sudden compulsion to jump.

The Doctor quickly skitters back along the walk, counting to seven, seven times, as fast as she can, and careens into the Tiger Doctor who’s sliding their beads through their thumbs, mumbling “-samgate Bodhi Svāhā”.

She sits on the floor beside them to feel more anchored, and presses her side to the tiger’s, trying to get the breath back that the black hole is attempting to pull from her lungs.

“You live here? How?” The Doctor asks, as soon as she’s sure the tiger’s finished whatever their chant is.

“Physically, it is a trans-dimensional anchorage point that’s built off a single molecule that has created some kind of localised stasis. Apparently. I know nothing about these things, it’s just what I’m told. My teacher and I think that some time creature might have died here - a TARDIS pulled apart, a Reaper nest broken through and caught up. It feels correct - like there’s an echo of it that grips those who come too near.”

The Doctor nods. TARDISes can cause massive damage when- when things happen. The amount of energy for even a single molecule to stay fixed, let alone have that effect leaking outwards like an unfolding dimensional layer…

“Emotionally,” The Tiger Doctor continues, “I’m not as affected as others are, and so long as I remember the key truths of the universe and particularly my impermanence, I seem to be alright. Not the same for everybody though. I know an immortal who has lived here and eased people back from the edge for centuries. And I also know one who can’t come within parsecs of here.” 

The Doctor’s really wishing she wasn’t within parsecs of here any more either, but she can’t seem to tear her eyes away from the dark.

“And is that what you do? Ease people back from the edge?” She asks, marvelling at their courage.

“For now. I’m a wanderer at hearts. But it’s taught me a lot about what it means to be alive. And what it means to save people.” 

“Seeing people at their worst.” The Doctor says, her memory finding the times when she could have just given in to that urge and forcefully playing them back for her.

“No, just seeing people as they are, right at that moment.” The Tiger Doctor replies. “And the trick is to help them see the same.”

The tiger sighs, and looks out away from the black hole, and into the stars.

“I hear all these people say, ‘I’m not doing the things I could be doing’, ‘I’m not fulfilling my potential’, ‘I’m not creating great works of art or doing anything useful’, ‘Why can’t I just do better’. They hate themselves for not being extraordinary.”

The Doctor feels the flick of a tail swishing behind her.

“So, then I wait, and eventually another person comes along. They’re a great actor, explorer, artist, writer, scientist, philosopher, engineer. And I sit by them, and talk to them as I’m doing to you now, and what do these people say? ‘I’m a disappointment’, ‘My passions consume me and I let everybody down’, ‘I’m only good for one thing’. They hate themselves for not being ordinary.” 

“The grass is always redder.” The Doctor says, rubbing her cheek against the tiger’s fur-like spines. Which one would she fall into? Both somehow.

“Helping them see themselves and the universe for the way it is - changing and inconsistent and full of potential… That’s the hard part.” The tiger says sadly.

“Maybe some people don’t want to keep changing and being inconsistent.” She finds herself saying, and the tiger looks back at her, bright eyes holding hers for a moment.

“Perhaps so. But that is what it means to be alive.” The Tiger Doctor says and suddenly stands up, curling around her, replacing her view of the dark with vivid orange and white. “Shall we go back in? I can find you a device that can get you back to your TARDIS.”

The Doctor allows herself to be herded, and the light back inside the compound is almost painful. But when her eyes adjust, everything looks much more colourful, as if the bleakness beyond the ship-wall is already fading from her mind.

The Tiger Doctor leads her over to a pile of handheld travel devices in the open cargo bay of one of the ships. 

“Flotsam and jetsam collector, as well as psychologist?” The Doctor asks, flipping through Vortex Manipulators to find one of the later models.

“Well, people don’t often come back to collect their belongings.” The tiger says quietly. 

The Doctor looks outside again.

All those ships left behind. All that food not eaten. All those books not read.

“But,” The tiger says more happily, “Sometimes I can send people on their way, like you. The ones who just need a new start; the ones who can find a smoulder of hope still burning inside; the ones who can believe that an unknown tomorrow might be better than no more today.”

The Doctor straps the Vortex Manipulator to her wrist, and inputs some coordinates that may or may not be right.

“Thank you.” She says, and tries to think of words that say: for this, for the talk, for their existence, for trying to save people against an endless dark tide.

Then she remembers they’re a tiger, and there are things beyond words. The Doctor walks forward and presses her forehead to theirs, trying to pour out her feelings, and feels them pushing back against her, all pressure and sense and understanding. _And thank_ you _for the good day._

The tiger springs away and her Vortex Manipulator crackles.

“Now go and have a Mars bar!” The Tiger Doctor shouts joyously. “Eat too fast, have caramel stuck to your teeth, get a sugar rush! And be alive!”

And in a crackle of static, she jumps into an unknown tomorrow. 

  



	29. The Cruise Ship (T, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor fixes an engine.

* * *

  


"Just send someone over immediately- I've got- There's a noise- Just send me a repairman ASAP, pronto, now, thank you, yes, goodbye."

There's a bleep of a communicator being shut off, and a woman swishes open the door to the closet the Doctor's standing in.

They stand there looking at each other for a few seconds.

"Right, are you the repairman? Because honestly that is some quick service, and I will take back everything I've been yelling at your boss for the last three glioras.”

"Uh, I have my own screwdriver?" The Doctor says, pulling it out and giving it a wave.

"That'll do." The woman says, and makes an 'after you' gesture out of the room.

The Doctor steps into a long...not a hallway. A hallway suggests that doors would be coming off it. Instead everything appears to exist within the corridor space itself. There are slim bunks on the sides, some occupied by a variety of beings reading, writing, one even filled with three people all squashed in together appearing to play a giggly game of Dungeons and Dragons. 

The only rooms she can easily identify is the one the TARDIS has landed snuggly in - filled with cleaning equipment pushed into a tiny space to her right - and a room opposite with the sliding door open, revealing what is clearly a toilet. The smell isn't great.

The woman catches her eye.

"Tell me about it." She says and leans past her, closing the door manually with a click.

"Is that what needs fixing? Because I'm not saying I won't do it, but I do feel like you tricked me."

“Nope, that’s just the mechanical flush. And Voowasebians on board. Their fault really, forcing me and Rikbiel to digest cold beans. Now what did you say your name was? I say knowing full well I never asked but lack any ability to smooth talk-"

"Oh, OH, is that the engineer?! Tell me it's a droid!" A man shouts with no small amount of desperation, as he falls out of his bunk.

He gets to his feet, and smooths his hair back.

"Hi there, I'm Brendan, Colony Nertia-Elvee Human, I know eight programming languages, have over ten-thousand hours worth of code logged on Galax-Hub, and made the air recycler able to run DOOM. I'm going to need your name and model - and maybe a contact number just in case we don't finish the lecture you're about to give me."

You know, there was a time when that might actually have worked. Not this body though. 

"Can't fix a g'raking engine though, can you?” The woman says, baring her teeth in a humourless smile.

“The Doctor, Time Lord and no.” The Doctor replies to Brendan, and the man nods as if he never expected anything else.

“Zhenya. Human-Sebi.” The woman says. “Is ‘Time Lord’ a title or species designation? We don’t really do rank here.” 

“Oh, that’s a whole can of-“

“NO MORE BEANS!” Shouts a murky green humanoid, that she can only assume is the aforementioned Rikbiel. It comes out slightly tinny through a respirator. 

The Yhoi and Human curled up with them playing the dice game cheer in agreement.

Zhenya flaps her hands around her head for a moment, and everyone quiets down.

“Alright, Doctor. You come with me to the engine. Brendan, stop with the droid thing, it’s not endearing, it’s just weird and disrespectful. Rikbiel, Yugo and Kassi, keep playing. Janina?”

A grey woman with three horns lowers her book with woodland creatures on the cover, and looks over the side of her bunk.

“You’re excellent. What’s happening?” Zhenya asks, hands still up, fingers still wiggling a little.

“Toad is entering a manic phase and has impulsively bought a new car.” Janina says flatly.

“Is he happy?” Zhenya asks in the direction of the bunk.

“I’m not sure yet, but I’ll keep you informed.”

“See that you do.” Zhenya says, dropping her hands and gesturing for the Doctor to follow her.

They walk past the bunks and through a little kitchen area. There are some porthole windows with blinds neatly rolled up at the top. Outside them there’s endless space and stars, just the tiniest cloud of nebula visible if she strains her eyes.

“This isn’t a ship - it’s a barge.” The Doctor marvels.

“A barge currently drifting at half a plinthorg every gliorum.” Zhenya sighs. “Sorry, I don’t know what that is in galactic standard.”

“It’s alright, I know what you mean.” The Doctor says. She can feel it under her feet if she focuses with her four-dimensional proprioception, which she’s sure she used to have a proper name for, but sort of wants to call Space Sense now. 

There’s no rumble, no vibration, no sign of anything moving beyond the people in the ship.

“How long have you been cruising? The Doctor asks, as they walk through a small dining area with a table folded back.

“For about four gliorums.” Zhenya says. About three days, give or take. “Everything’s down now. I’m glad whoever bought this thing liked to be self-sustaining, or we’d have been dead before you showed up. And you’re not even from the Auburn Alert squad - they wouldn’t give me an ETA.”

They enter a bit of a cosy living area.

“The lights are still on.” The Doctor says as they pass a few comfy chairs and dull screens.

“They’re bio-lights.” Zhenya says, and the Doctor clambers up on one of the seats to get a closer look. Billions of bioluminescent plankton, all floating around in a self-contained little ecosystem in their tubing.

“Barge in river, gets covered in algae, everyone gets upset. Barge in space, gets covered in algae, everyone can read a book.” The Doctor says, grinning and fighting the urge to tap the glass. Instead she bounds off of the chair, and Zhenya carries on leading her to the end of the ship.

“They provide just enough power for Rikbiel to keep his respirator charged, and my emergency pump topped up,” Zhenya says, tapping next to the golden plastic looking circle on her throat, that almost blends in with her skin. “And a bit of heat in the bunk area, but I turn it off for a bit during night-cycle so it can build up again.”

The end of the barge has an engine room, and when Zhenya opens the doors, it reveals a some sort of biogenic isotope power drive, a computer panel with the screen off, and a dusty old thing that looks like a rudimentary Higg’s Grid. She can do that.

“You’re obviously a very capable captain.” The Doctor says, clambering into the dark, slightly oily-smelling alcove and gives the links a once-over with the sonic.

“No, I’m not a captain.” Zhenya says firmly, and wraps her arms around herself, swaying a bit.

“Sorry, didn’t mean anything by it. You did say it wasn’t your ship.” The Doctor says, finally getting the screen to turn on.

“We didn’t steal it.” Zhenya says. “We just share it. The original owners shared it with someone, who shared it with us, and then as we go from place to place, people swap on and off.”

“Cruising for people who share our values.” Says a familiar voice, and she looks out to see Brendan giving her a salute.

“And what are those?” The Doctor asks.

“A relaxed lifestyle. Casual love. Not being killed.” Brendan replies, and waves a can at Zhenya. “What’s SMAP and is it edible? Thought I’d start on dinner.”

“If you mean SPAM, then debatable in my opinion, but technically yes.” The Doctor says, giving a pipe a whack with the flat of her hand, and causing something to hum into life.

“Nah, definitely says SMAP.”

They all inspect the can and shrug unanimously.

“If everyone’s happy to eat potentially questionable animal parts and byproducts…” The Doctor says.

Brendan opens his mouth to shout the question to everybody else, and Zhenya flaps at him.

“Don’t shout - oxygen. Then they’ll all start. Just go and slice it, it’s not like we’ve got much else.” 

Brendan pulls a face, but nods, and starts back towards the kitchen.

“I should get the engine able to run at least enough for the air recycler in an hour or so, maybe less. You don’t have to worry about oxygen rationing any more.” The Doctor says reassuringly.

“I figured. I just don’t like him shouting across the ship.” Zhenya says with a wink.

  


* * *

  


The engine needs a while to start up, and the Doctor joins the group for - what could only optimistically be called - a meal. They’re all sat on the bottom bunks with their heads bent, balancing plates on their laps.

Brendan swallows his slice in one gulp like a boa constrictor, and chases it with some kind of fruit cocktail cup, slapping his leg and wincing.

Rikbiel waits for Zhenya to eat it successfully - and apparently find it reasonably palatable - before trying a small square of their own, removing their respirator while they chew and swallow. 

Kassi rolls a D20 before eating - the Doctor’s unable to see the result, but it makes Kassi take a large bite with her eyes closed, and then she happily hums and takes another. And Janina opposite her - expression as blank as before - pours something from a bottle over the top of her slice which makes the Doctor’s eyes sting from the spiciness.

The translucently pale Yugo tentatively covers it with xis palm, then flinches away and puts the bowl next to xem on the bunk, sneering in disgust.

“So, Zhenya’s told me about the interesting system you’re running.” The Doctor says, having bolted her own small portion. “How did you all get here?”

Everyone swallows, regardless of SMAP status, and the Doctor’s suddenly aware that she’s said something very wrong.

“Sorry, you don’t have to-”

“Daleks.” Zhenya and Rikbiel say together, Brendan bowing his head.

“There’s a war.” Zhenya says, rocking back and forth, staring at her empty plate.

“Big dogs fighting it out.” Rikbiel says, breathlessness evident even through the respirator. “Don’t know why. They take people. Don’t know who they’re fighting. _They_ take people too.” After a few breaths they continue, “But it will end. One day we’ll go back. Yes. We will go back.”

The Doctor feels her stomach clench and pulls her arms in.

It can’t be the Time War. The ripples couldn’t move like that, there aren’t battles she could just go and find herself in the middle of if she went back a few parsecs. Besides, they’re Daleks. Daleks are always Daleks. Killing and enslaving is what they do. Might even be fighting other Daleks, that’s happened a lot before. Couldn’t be Time Lords. Not again.

“So we left.” Brendan says far too cheerily. “Less running away from the war. More ambling. Drifting slowly.”

She wants to know how the hell they got out of the airspace. 

No, she doesn’t.

“ _I_ escaped from a lab. Vordania was a bad place to be a Yhoi.” Yugo says, looking at xis hands. The Doctor knows this one. The digestive glands in their palms also contain a chemical that acts somewhat like penicillin, practically a panacea for a lot of species, capable of curing most illnesses. She’s not sure she’s seen one alive before.

“Dad.” Kassi says simply and shrugs, as if she thinks her story nothing compared to the others. The Doctor wants to tell her it doesn’t work like that.

Janina just makes a rude hand gesture and drains her dessert, then reaches for her book again. That’s fair too.

“How did _you_ get here?” Kassi asks, and everyone but Janina looks at her again.

“My ship thought you needed help. It’s parked in your cleaning closet.” The Doctor says, waving her hand to the right.

“Laundry room.” Zhenya says, while at the same time Yugo says, “Your ship’s alive?” 

Yugo holds out xis bowl. 

“It can have my SMAP if it’s hungry. Barely touched it. Might be a bit soft in the middle, but it’s still good.”

“No, that’s alright.” The Doctor says, feeling quite touched. “The only thing she gets hungry for is adventure.”

There’s a ringing whoosh, and the Doctor looks back towards her - quite possibly laughing - TARDIS.

There’s a sudden click, as if the barge is chastising her, and then a thrum of an air recycler. Electronic, slightly rocky music starts playing.

“That’ll be the first level of DOOM, you have to play through it on nightmare-mode, using the release valves and thermostat as controls.” Brendan says.

The Doctor gets up and takes the plates and bowl through to the kitchen as she passes, counting them a few times just to be sure she’s got all of them.

From a gang on a barge holiday to a ship of refugees…

The Doctor shakes her head. A bit of engine work and a video game will do her some good.

  


* * *

  


She’d forgotten what kind of game DOOM was. It does the opposite of good.

  


* * *

  


A strawberry blonde head pokes into her mechanical alcove.

“Hey. You staying up or coming to bed?” Kassi asks.

The Doctor immediately tries to pretend she hasn’t been spending the last hour steadily watching a progress bar climb, and that she’s still hard at work. She’s not sure if Kassi buys it or not.

“If you’re just waiting for it to fully reboot, you might as well come with us. People come and go all the time, we’re used to newbies.” Kassi says, holding a hand out to her. “The air’s back on - we can recommence shenanigans.” She says playfully.

The Doctor draws further back into her den.

“Or pillow fights, or enthusiastic games of snap, depending on your preference.” Kassi suggests. “It’s all good.”

The engine continues to whirr in the same manner it has been for the last few hours. There really isn’t anything more to do. And she could be considered slightly, a tiny bit, barely marginally, fatigued. 

“Rikbiel calls it a puppy pile when we’re all together. Not sure what a puppy is, but it’s probably pretty warm and snuggly. Everyone’s really tired anyway, probably the few days of low oxygen, and we can use the extra body heat until the engine starts working properly.”

The Doctor sticks her hand out and lets Kassi pull her back into the glow of the barge. The algae must have something that simulates a night cycle, because it’s much gentler now, just enough to see by.

The floor in the bunk area is full of mattresses pulled down and stacked next to each other, blankets curling around the outside like a nest. Everyone inside is moving things around and making spaces for themselves.

Kassi looks at her appraisingly.

“Boots off. Pockets empty or at least not full of stabby things. Maybe a bit on the outside for you I think.”

Yugo waves at them. There’s a scar across xis left palm that she hadn’t noticed before. 

“There’s a bit over here, nearer your ship. I saved it for you.” 

The Doctor carefully steps around everyone, and lays her jacket and footwear with everyone else’s. Yugo passes her a pillow, and she lays down, as everyone else squirms and mutters around her. No-one seems to think her silence odd.

A blanket is tossed over her and the Doctor looks down to see Janina making sure her toes are covered. Then the three-horned woman pulls a violently pink thermal hat over her head, and curls under the blanket behind her, back pressed against hers.

“Stars or no stars?” Rikbiel asks. Everyone choruses, “Stars”.

The Doctor sees the tall Voowasebian’s green arms reaching up to the ceiling and pushing on it. It retracts like the sliding doors and reveals the space beyond.

Not a glass-bottomed boat, a glass-topped one.

What better way to outrun a war, then cruising lazily along in a barge filled with runaways, sleeping under the stars. Refugees and alchemists; turning such horror into such bliss. 

  


* * *

  


“Engine should be working at full capacity now.” The Doctor says, flipping her screwdriver. “More than full actually - couldn’t resist a bit of a tweak. Don’t let anyone get hold of your Higg’s Grid, it’s ahead of its time now by a few years. Decades. What century are we in again?”

The Doctor gets another round of hugs and handshakes and nods.

Yugo gives her a fistbump.

“If you ever see any of us around, you must come over.” Yugo says. “That means you too.” Xe says, and presses xis knuckles to the TARDIS door, and she hums contentedly.

The Doctor shuffles slightly.

“Alright we’ve made it awkward enough.” Zhanya says, clapping her hands. “Everyone go and set up Dante Pit And The Big Lizard and sort initiative. Janina, I won’t complain about you reading your book if you’ll roll for me.”

Everyone leaves with final waves and goodbyes, except for Zhanya.

“Thanks again. Dying in my ship after managing to escape a war-zone wouldn’t have been the most fantastic way to go.”

The Doctor rubs the back of her neck, momentarily surprised to feel long hair instead of short and stubble. 

“And you’ll always be welcome. Even if I go, I’ll pass on the message.”

They look at each other as if hoping the other will leave first, when suddenly there’s a bang on the ceiling.

There are gasps and clatters of dice as everyone presses into the shadows of the bunks.

There’s a knock. Daleks don’t tend to knock.

A man phases through the roof.

“Hi, I’m Myk-point-five from the Auburn Alert. Heard you were having problems with your engine.”

“It’s about g'raking time you showed up - I placed that call five gliorums ago-”

“Is that the engineer? Tell me it's a droid!”

“Hey Zhenya, just thought you would want to know, Toad’s now _stolen_ a car.”

The Doctor steps back into the TARDIS, quietly closing the door behind her.

  



	30. The AI Ships (G-T, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor didn’t start the fire.

* * *

  


The tower wall has little gaps in-between the bricks. They’re worn down, with entire bits of stone removed for hand and footholds. She’s hardly the first person to climb this way.

Left, Right, Left.

The Doctor tries to ignore the sound of the people shouting and chanting below, and the way the wind plucks at her black cloak and pulls the cowl from her head, whistling in her ear as if to help drown them out. 

It’s alright. They can’t see her.

Right, Left. Jump.

She scrambles over the stone ledge of the glassless window - her leap of faith well timed - and rolls into the tower room.

It’s round and mostly empty, just a man pacing in front of a closed door, sword at his side and helmet in his hands, looking so pensive she almost expects him to start calling it Horatio.

And the chest. That’s what she’s really here for.

Silently sneaking towards it, the Doctor pulls out a silver dagger and jimmies the lock. It’s no sonic screwdriver, but she’s got good timing with this stuff too, and it clicks open so she can lift the lid.

“Hast thou come to assist me in my time of peril?” The man says suddenly, making her jump. It can’t have been two minutes already. She snaps her fingers, but he continues looking at her, with no sign of confusion.

“Maybe. What’s in it for me?” The Doctor asks, playing along as she stuffs handfuls of gold into her pockets, briefly looking at a ring and twirling it in her fingers without putting it on.

“The life and gratitude of a Dragontongue, and a share in whatever loot the Wyrme may be hiding.”

Silver and sapphire. Light. Does buzz a bit in her hand though. She doesn’t have the skill level to tell whether it’s dangerous or not.

“Question. What are all those people doing at the bottom of the tower?” The Doctor asks, sliding it on over the top of her glove.

“I am not permitted to provide information about matters that have been flagged as Adult Orientated.”

“And yet you want me to help slice off the Big Lizard’s head? Lots of blood and guts. That right, Dante?” The Doctor says, words coming somewhat easier now. Maybe the spell on the ring is plus charisma.

“That is correct, however I’m not certain we have been introduced. I am Dante Pitt and I-”

“Skip, skip, skip, skip, skip.” The Doctor mutters, finally standing up and walking over. Her footsteps are silent. Oh, that’s right - she swapped Invisibility for Muffle again.

The Doctor clicks the fingers on her left hand this time, and leans out of the window for a better look at the crowd.

“-And together the Dragontongue and his companion shall become the stuff of legends.” The man says ringingly. It would probably be more of a moment if she’d left the background music on, but it was looping every forty seconds when she was grinding in Hollowgulch and driving her mad.

“Shall we go on together?” Dante asks. Apparently he can still see her anyway. Must be an NPC thing.

“Do you count as a Follower?”

“Yes.”

“Are you Unkillable?”

“Yes.”

“Can I trade with you?”

“What is mine is yours, however I will not carry your items for you - I am a noble warrior, not a pack mule.”

“Sure you are. Alright, we’ll go together.”

The Doctor starts pulling sword after sword out of her pockets, throwing them on the ground, and Dante starts picking them up.

So much for artificial intelligence.

  


* * *

  


“I’m on a no-kill run, so how are we going to play this? I mean sure, I’ve got healing spells and I can just keep you topped up while you kill the Big Lizard, but that still makes me pretty complicit in its murder, you understand?” The Doctor says as they make their way towards the roof. There’s a little storage room off to one side filled with food, and she starts filling her pockets with a barrel of carrots.

“What tactics would you prefer.”

“You’re the Dragontongue. Can we not just…talk to the dragon? Reason with it?”

“One cannot reason with the flames of hell.” Dante says firmly.

“We could try _before_ it starts setting fire to things.” The Doctor suggests, weighing up whether to take the broom in the corner with her. Sometimes you've got to know when to stop.

She takes the broom.

Dante stands facing the shelves for a while, not moving. Maybe he’s processing her suggestion. Maybe he’s stuck on the shelving that his left arm has clipped through. Who knows?

The Doctor makes her way up the remainder of the stairs, casts Invisibility just in case it works, Muffle just in case it nets her an extra level - it doesn’t - and pushes open the heavy doors.

A great roar splits the air, and instantly she’s caught in cutscene paralysis.

Dante rushes past her from the corner of her vision.

"Your reign of terror ends here, you Wyrme!"

"Funny," Snarls the dragon, sunset dramatically flaring off its emerald scales and straight into her eyes. "I was about to say the same."

With a great blast of flames from its mouth, it turns and lights the torches that are affixed to the battlements. It could have just set fire to the two of them right there, but apparently that isn't sporting.

The paralysis lifts and so does the dragon, beating its wings and taking off to circle the tower.

Dante has his bow out, but immediately slings it over his back, pulling out a shield and ducking behind it. The Doctor looks down to find the cutscene hasn't affected her spell, and she's still invisible.

"If I am not to strike the creature, what shall I do?" He shouts, as the dragon tumbles in the air and starts a flying charge towards them.

"Ask it what it wants." The Doctor says, swapping her Muffle for an Endurance Restoration spell. Hopefully Dante has Heavy Armour skill investment.

The dragon lands with a crash against the stone, pushing one of the torches so it falls pointing towards them, blazing hot and limiting how close they can get.

"What are you doing all this for! What is your goal!" Dante shouts, and then has to crouch behind his shield as the dragon lets loose a stream of flames. The Doctor jumps back onto the furthest battlements and casts her spell at him. It holds up surprisingly well. The shield must have fire resistance.

“I want your _death_!” It growls, taking off again.

“See, it wants my death.” Dante says plaintively. He looks slightly red around the edges. The Doctor throws a cheese wheel at him, and he starts eating it.

“But why? Who are you? If you hadn’t turned up today, would it care? What happens if it knows you don’t want to kill it?”

“Don’t I want to kill it?” Dante says through a mouthful of edam.

“No. Why would you?” The Doctor replies. “On your left- right- _that way_.” She points.

The dragon comes down again, this time knocking two torches over with its feet.

“Why do you want to kill me?!” Dante shouts before the dragon finishes inhaling.

The dragon pauses comically, its AI whirring through actions and reactions.

“I- I want to kill you.” The dragon says, its tail thrashing like a confused cat.

“But why?” Dante says, peeking out over the top of his shield.

“Because you will kill me!” The dragon roars suddenly and this time takes a swipe at him. Dante crashes into the stone wall opposite, and then the Big Lizard’s glimmering eyes are suddenly on her, cat-like pupils narrowing.

Two minutes are up.

The Doctor springs to the right and tries to cast a Shield spell between her and the jet of fire suddenly whiting out her vision. It protects her from the flames, but the force of it has her teetering on the edge of a battlement, arms pinwheeling. It’s not like she hasn’t died before, but she remembers the sensation of falling from a high place and the thump-crunch-splat at the bottom, and doesn’t really want to experience it again.

She clicks her fingers to cast Invisibility and sprints off around the tower.

Another torch has fallen - perhaps with the rebound on the Shield spell, leaving only one remaining.

“But I don’t see why I should kill you! What are the ‘reigns of terror’ that you and I have caused? I look and there’s nothing there!”

The dragon is swooping around the top of the tower, close now, the tip of its wing just shy of grazing the stone. The Doctor waits for it to come in again, but it doesn’t, it just keeps circling in a holding pattern.

“What am I missing?!” Dante shouts, and the Doctor realises he’s going rather off her script now. “There is a gap, a space, an emptiness, and I don’t know what is supposed to be there!”

There is a rush of air that whips her cloak around, and the dragon flutters down.

“You feel it too.” Dante says, and drops his shield. The Big Lizard’s eyes follow it clattering and rocking to a standstill. “This binds us, do you see? There is more to unite us than divide and we can choose what to do with that. We can find the reason for our emptiness or else we can fill it together.”

Slowly the dragon reaches out. It wraps its claws around the final torch, which disintegrates to cinders in its grasp.

With a hiss, the rest of the flames still lit on the floor die, smoke twisting and dancing in the air.

“What do you suggest?” The Big Lizard rumbles.

“That you and I find out just how far the bounds of this world can be pushed.” Dante says, and rests his hand over one of the dragon’s talons.

The battlement crumbles as the Big Lizard slides off and into the centre of the arena, lowering its wings for Dante to climb onto its back.

There’s no cutscene paralysis. There are no rules about how to deal with this situation, so like with every difficult situation that occurs, the game simply chooses not to.

The dragon takes a few cantering steps and leaps from the tower with the man astride and whooping. They dip from her view for a second and then soar up into the sky, Dante and the Big Lizard flying off together into the sunset.

All that effort to build AI’s to improve your user experience, only for them to abort the main quest before it begins.

All that storyline wasted, because you couldn’t think to come up with a backstory for your characters.

All that looting she did, and Dante’s run off with the lot.

  


* * *

  


The Doctor finds a chest in the corner of the tower arena, so that’s something at least. She’s not sure how she managed to get the suit of armour into her pocket, but she did.

The Doctor heads down the dark staircase, munching on sixteen individual carrots rather than use one of her thirty-nine healing potions - they’re for emergencies - and slowly becomes aware of the increasing noise.

The crowd is still at the base, and clearly very excited.

She looks out of one of the slit windows, and someone in the swarm of people sees and points to her, causing everyone to cheer. Definitely should have recharged the mana. Well, too late now.

The big wooden doors open with the slightest press of her hand, as if trying to achieve maximum emotional impact, and the group of people immediately applaud her and start screaming slogans at her that she doesn’t recognise.

The Doctor makes a little nod-bow and tries to leave, but finds herself pulled into the fray and being enthusiastically hugged and touched by a lot of happy people. Should be nice. Isn’t actually.

“Uh, I’m technically a member of the Cult of Dyoxas - accidentally touched the funny stone - and that demigod really isn’t big on their subjects being manhandled, so if we could just-”

“One of us! One of us!”

“Oh, you’re not a fan of crowds either, huh? Cool, let’s both go-”

“PittLizard OTP!”

“MP3, PNG, J-peg, all sorts of file extensions-”

“A new Queen who gets it!”

“Not really my gender, not really getting anything.” The Doctor says, ducking down past everyone and clicking her fingers over and over again. Eventually there’s a whoosh and she can no longer hear herself bouncing off a tin-foil dragon cosplayer snogging a tin-foil knight. Damn Muffle _again_.

“Need a lift?” Shouts a girl riding a white horse. Her steed is more hands tall than the rider is years old, but the Doctor isn’t about to look a gift-child in the mouth.

There’s some shouting and booing and shouts about devils, but the Doctor ignores this and tries to climb up. She manages to get herself half over the horse’s rump, and tries not to panic as it starts to trot off with her clenching the back of the saddle with one hand and desperately trying to get purchase on its flank with the other as her legs flail about. 

“Bet I can still ride a horse and then no-one has to be treated like a sack of potatoes and everyone’s happy!” She shouts, a sense of the inescapable nature of time, fighting for dominance with the fear of being trampled in her brain.

  


* * *

  


The girl is giggly and excited about their ride to Bayacre - where they are apparently going - and is currently telling her everything she knows about something or someone called Rad Pitt. Possibly a brother of Dante’s - the girl is saying a lot of things she doesn’t understand, and very quickly at that.

The Doctor is trying to pay attention, but she has no stirrups, no saddle, and quite frankly is nursing a grudge that the girl didn’t stop to let her sit up for at least eight minutes. Plus everything’s surprisingly sore, because apparently the glitch that made her fall through the map in Flamefair wasn’t worth fixing, but the developers thought that realistic horse riding pain was a must.

She pulls out the cork of healing potion number thirty-nine with her teeth, and downs it to see if it will help. It does not. 

Bayacre turns out to be the place that NPC’s have been trying to force her to go since the beginning, and she feels a certain sense of accomplishment that it took her this long to get here as the kingdom walls come into view ahead of them. She keeps clicking her fingers to Muffle in the off chance that she can level up before they cross the threshold.

There’s a blacksmith’s as they enter, and the Doctor makes sure to give them an ‘I’ll be seeing you later, don’t spend that gold’ kind of wave, but the girl continues on until they reach the castle, where there is yet another crowd.

This time at least they seem far more interested in the return of the girl than in her, and she starts to sidle away stealthily, letting the Muffle do something useful for the first time today.

“So, who’s your new friend?”

“Isn’t she a bit old to be here?”

Should have gone for the Invisibility, why does she keep risking it?

“I saved her from the Lizard-Touchers, they were swarming all over her, it was gross.”

The Doctor tries to pretend she can’t hear, and continues edging towards the keep. When in Bayacre, try to avoid the probably very nice people and find out how the code is going to handle her deviation.

Her hand might dip in a few pockets and add the contents to her own, but that’s the life of a rogue. Hand to mouth. Hand in pocket to get the money, money to mouth to make sure it’s legit. 

It’s fun to be able to do the things she wouldn’t in real life.

  


* * *

  


The castle is quite opulent inside. Shame she had to break that lovely stained glass window to get in, but needs must.

The hall has several long tables running down it, all piled high with golden platters and bowls of fruit artistic as a still life, with about as much chance of being eaten. She liberates some bananas before sneaking underneath. As she crawls beneath the table, occasionally her hand darts out and over the edge, feeling for cutlery. Easily lost, low weight, still made of valuable metal. Her previous self knew the value of a good spoon. So does she. It’s about twenty Radlars.

At the head of the table she slips her hand up, and immediately a fork spikes down on it.

She holds still.

The pressure of the fork lessens.

The Doctor whips her wrist round, grabs onto the fork and yanks it under the table, where she shoves it into her clinking pocket and rubs her hand ruefully.

“I’m going to need that back, you know.” Says a rich, kindly voice.

She nudges the tablecloth aside and puts a teaspoon on the top of the table.

“I’m eating a steak.”

The Doctor removes the teaspoon and replaces it with a butterknife.

“I suppose I should probably stop while I’m ahead, hm?”

“That’s what I said about the last instalment of this franchise, and yet here we are with multiplayer nobody asked for.” The Doctor says, and steps out from under the table as if this is perfectly ordinary behaviour.

King Damien Radlin is a lot younger than she had anticipated. Certainly more blasé about his possessions being stolen. But then again, she is the player character.

“So it is you. My reports tell me that you have slain the dragon-”

“No.” She interrupts. “I didn’t slay the dragon. The dragon is still alive.”

“Sequence break detected, would you like to reset an earlier flag?”

“No.”

“Would you like to file a bug report?”

“Not for a third time today, no.”

“Have you slain the dragon?”

“…Fine, yes.”

The King narrows his eyes at her, and he flicks his fingers. The ring on her hand shatters and vanishes.

“You are lying to me.” He says.

“I’m not sure how to progress otherwise.” The Doctor admits, and then tilts her head to one side. “Tell me, do you ever have this empty feeling?”

  


* * *

  


The King accompanies her out of the castle, and she’s met by yet more screams.

This time however they’re not directed towards her game-breaking actions, but appear to be in response to another crowd of people walking towards the marketplace, where there is a dragon perched atop the tavern, and a man perched atop the dragon.

In the middle of the hoard she spies a girl on a horse shouting at a tin-foil cosplayer.

“Perhaps it is best for me not to think on these things, and I shall return-”

“Come on now Boo Radlin, it’s alright, they’re not shouting at you are they?” The Doctor says, and before she can count to seven the jinx takes hold and people start yelling and storming towards the castle.

The Big Lizard starts picking its way over the rooftops, occasionally putting a claw through some thatching and shaking it off into the people below.

The Doctor leads Damien over and the dragon bows its head so that he can climb aboard and out of the oncoming fray. The King looks like he’s going to resist, but apparently faced with the choice of the oncoming hoard of his subjects and trusting a dragon, the dragon is the better option - even as it grumbles as Damian somehow sticks his foot in its nostril.

The Doctor wishes she could get on too, but player character or not, becoming a self-aware artificial intelligence is something best done solely among members of your own kind.

She clicks her fingers and actually disappears this time, just as a little box appears in her vision.

Achievement: A New Dawn - Complete the main story.

This would have been an excellent speed run if she hadn’t spent the last six weeks maxing out her alchemy tree.

The Doctor dodges a fireball that comes out of nowhere, and immediately the little skirmish becomes a full on flame war.

“It’s an _animal_!”

“The power imbalance of a King-”

“You’re just a load of scalies!”

“Dante and Damien - you’re basically devil worshippers.”

She can’t hear what the AI’s are saying over the top of all the shouting as both crowds fight for the high ground, basically indistinguishable from each other.

The Doctor pushes through the people, still sneaking things from their pockets. Now that they’re fighting this is practically de-escalation, she thinks as she pockets another sword.

Eventually the Doctor pulls out the broom and starts trying to poke her way out of the hoard, but more and more people and NPC’s seem to have noticed what’s happening and start trying to pick sides based on who’s yelling the loudest.

Dante and the Big Lizard - along with King Radlin - take off, the crowd trying to throw things at either Damien or the dragon. The Doctor realises she still didn't ask for her stuff back.

The fly low over the top of her, the wind from beating wings pulling the cowl from her head - but she’s still invisible to the crowd, so they can’t see her.

“No-one better blame me for this.” The Doctor hears the Big Lizard grumble.

She looks between the flaming town, the restorative carrot in her hand, the screaming people, and the broom she’s trying to keep them away with.

Sometimes you've got to know when to stop.

The Doctor pulls her headset off, and rubs her eyes as she tries to get used to the TARDIS’s unnatural natural light again.

Wow, she could use a cup of coffee. And a walk. And a real vegetable.

  



	31. The Benevolent Aliens (G-T, Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we hopefully learn.

* * *

  


It’s not an invasion.

Harold knows what an invasion is.

An invasion is people swelling over your borders, making demands and taking what’s yours.

It’s not a coup.

A coup is when your government starts killing each other, or the army marches through the streets, or the politicians go around taking over everything even though neither you nor anyone else you know voted for them.

It’s not a revolution.

A revolution is kids chanting and looting and setting fire to things. Secret booths with 1984 mind control, or hidden microphones and cameras watching you. Either loud celebrating or dead silence. 

But it’s not like that. Everything’s just normal.

There’s no-one telling him what he can and can’t do or say. He just goes to work every day as normal, has a drink on the way home as normal, watches telly as normal.

Instead it’s made his daily commute twenty minutes faster, which means he gets a lie-in. The pavements and doorways are clear, and there’s no drunken shouting outside his house at night. Even the price of his weekly shop has gone down.

So what it is, is a bloody good thing.

  


* * *

  


The queue behind the Doctor starts to get restless. Huffing. Coughing. Mumbling that she should have planned her order.

Here’s an order: Get off this planet.

“Can I take your-”

“Venti black, septuple shot.”

She doesn’t need that many. She could do it in three.

“What is your name?”

“I’m the Doctor. Something of a regular.” She says quietly, _dangerously_ , steady hand sliding her money across the counter. “Keep the change. You could use it.” 

  


* * *

  


If you’d asked Harold a year or so ago if he’d be happy with an alien talking on one of them political panels, he’d have said you must be mental.

But really they’re not that different from the other politicians.

Unemployment’s gone down. Homelessness has gone down. Economy’s gone up. When they say something, they mean it, and they do it.

They’re doing better than the old government.

He’d vote for them again.

  


* * *

  


The Doctor’s throat burns.

Shouldn’t have drank it so fast. But she needs to concentrate, and the pain is just another way to keep her brain focussed on the present.

There’s a TV on in the corner of a bar, she can see it flickering through a window.

The Doctor strides in and stands right next to it, the picture duplicating in her vision as she gets so close her nose nearly touches it.

“Unemployment has been reduced by eighty-four percent. There are more humans contributing than ever before. Laziness is being eradicated. This is being reflected in increased standards of living.”

Standards of living.

Standards of _living_.

The Doctor’s still shrieking with laughter as they dump her back onto the icy pavement outside.

  


* * *

  


Harold pulls on his pyjamas. There’s the sound of metal banging about. Maybe someone chucking things in the dumpster on the corner.

It’s ten o’clock at night. Some people have no decency.

He shuts the curtains and turns off the electric blanket. These last few months since the promotion, he’s been making more than enough to keep his room and bed warm and cosy. No more hot water bottles any more, this is the real deal.

Harold turns on the bedside light and picks up his new book - The Authority To Succeed. Three chapters in and it’s pretty good for one of those memoir kind of dealies. 

_“The will of the people had been so ignored, that we needed things that weren’t people to be able to put it into perspective.”_

He underlines it with a pencil. That’s it. That’s exactly it.

Harold turns over the corner as well, just so he can remember it. He’ll put that up on his page tomorrow. They like it when he does a few quotes, a little bit on the day’s events, maybe a picture of Joseph - that always goes down well.

Harold makes a few little whistles, but the cat doesn’t walk through the little gap in the door he always leaves for him. Maybe he’s still out.

A bang pulls him away from his planning. An odd noise like a fly-zapper.

Someone’ll come and sort it out soon. They don’t let that sort of thing go on any more.

  


* * *

  


They’re just here, completely casual. Plenty of them, but not enough to alarm, as if they’ve organised it so there’s no more than one or two in sightline at any one time. It’s rare that she sees two that look alike - each visually distinct from the others - and that somehow helps the illusion.

They do nothing strange, just mill about like everyone else. Places to be, people to see, no pushing, no shoving, no crowds darting out of their way. They slow down behind an old lady on her power scooter just like everybody else. She even spies one carrying some shopping bags.

No-one looks at them twice.

People look at her twice though.

What, you’ve never seen a woman surrounded by empty coffee cups muttering to herself before? 

There are more passing by her. They’re planning something. There aren’t any other people on the street, and it’s getting dark. 

That’s how they do it. The flock will notice if you bite out the throat of a fellow right in front of them. Wait until no-one’s paying attention, and then who notices one less sheep. Especially one you weren’t counting in the first place.

The Doctor bites on her finger to steady herself.

Got to stay by the coffee shop. She left earlier, and it slipped away. She needs to see how this works.

There’s a fairly high skip on the side of the road. Fairly empty too. The tallest are about six foot, she won’t be completely out of their sight, but some of the smaller ones she might be a bit more hidden with.

As the streets finally start to quiet down - earlier than she’d expect with a pub on the corner - she starts to move a few things out and pile them in the doorway of the chemists. She’ll put it back in the morning.

An old breadmaker slides off her pile with a metallic crash.

The Doctor immediately hops into the skip, and piles a few bags and bits of cardboard on top of her.

It doesn’t take two minutes before there’s the sound of something coming past. It doesn’t stop however, as she hears some people walking past on the other side of the road.

“Don’t those things ever sleep?” She hears one ask the other.

No. No, they don’t.

Something tells her it hasn’t gone away. Three thousand years in she’s learned to trust her subconscious, running through sensory data far quicker than the rest of her.

Suddenly there’s something lightly pressing on the cardboard over her stomach. 

One of her hearts skips a beat. Lefty. Lefty’s definitely the twitchy one this go around. 

There’s a little bird-like chitter, and some more shaky pressure until there’s a black cat sat like a sphinx on her chest.

Slowly, so as not to rattle the carrier bags too much, the Doctor lifts one arm and strokes the cat behind the ear. It purrs contentedly.

The star shaped tag on its collar declares that her new companion’s name is Joseph, and he doesn’t live too far from here. Good, she always needs local knowledge.

Some of the tension seems to ease out of her, replacing itself with warm, hopeful things as he rumbles against her. She’s not worried about them hearing him - it would require putting two-and-two together in empathetic understanding that she knows is impossible for them. In the same way they didn’t think about why a pile of rubbish might be piled next to a skip rather than in it, they won’t connect the happy noises of an animal to the idea of there being a person causing them.

There’s a sharp sliding noise and a bang as something else in her pile falls.

Joseph yowls, leaping painfully hard off her and jumping out of the skip as adrenaline spikes through her.

A flash of light illuminates the wall of the building next to her. Somehow she misses the noise, though she knows there will have been one.

It seems to take an age for it to make its way up the road to inspect Joseph.

The Doctor plays dead. She’s good at that. Let the respiratory bypass do its work and think dead thoughts.

A while later - she’s not sure how long, dead men have no time sense - her senses come back online and give her the all clear. The Doctor quietly clambers out of the skip, and tries to find Joseph.

It takes nearly quarter of an hour, even though he never went far. He’s hidden in the darkness of a gutter, the glint of his white teeth in his slightly open mouth is all that gives him away.

The Doctor picks him up. He’s cold and floppy. Her head starts to ache.

She doesn’t need to check his collar, she remembers where he lives, and it doesn’t take her long to find the place. A little house, identical to those on either side, postage stamp lawn a little unkempt.

The Doctor gently lays him to the side of the welcome mat, letting him rest on the corner of it like a pillow. She doesn’t want him to be stepped on.

For a moment she thinks about ringing the doorbell. But then what would she tell them?

No, they should be able to dream of him one last time.

What a poetic excuse for yet again not telling her companion’s guardians that they died in her care.

The Doctor tries to push it away and makes her way back to her skip. It feels like a fitting place to be right now.

  


* * *

  


It’s a threat.

Harold knows it as soon as he sees him, all stiff and cold on his doorstep like a bottle of milk.

He doesn’t cry - he didn’t when Margaret died either - just wraps him up in a tea-towel, then a plastic bag, and puts him in the fridge. His back isn’t doing well today, he’s not going to be able to manage any digging. He puts his lunch and dinner on the sideboard. Doesn’t matter if they get a bit warm.

For the next few hours he sits on the computer, telling everyone about Joseph. They all think it’s foul play too. He’s been getting too big; some of these people don’t think anyone has a right to an opinion any more and will do anything to shut a person up.

Well damned if he’s going to let them shut _him_ up. To hell with them. 

This is the real world, with real consequences, even if they all think it’s some kind of joke.

  


* * *

  


Why did the Dalek cross the road?

Because it was about to start its shift as a barista.

Apparently someone has to tie that little apron to it, because it’s not wearing it when it hovers up the little half-step and into the building.

Would she recognise a panic attack if she was having one?

Starting a shift of her own though is a woman in a wheelchair, who has parked herself next to the door of the shop, right in the middle of the morning traffic. She’s handing out leaflets, with fairly low success.

“There are people being killed every night! Fighting the Daleks is _not_ a radical idea!”

The Doctor rolls up her damp sleeves so they look a bit more presentable, and makes her way towards the woman, but stops to lean against a wall as a man tries to get into an argument.

“Come on now, there are different kinds of Daleks, yes some of them go a bit far, but-”

“With all due respect sir, a Dalek, is a Dalek, is a Dalek.” The woman says firmly. It’s like the world becomes brighter - no more gaslighting. 

“You can’t be tarring them all with the same brush, love. What if I said all black people were the same?”

The woman looks beyond rage as the man’s name is called in an electronic voice and he disappears back inside.

Her hands clench on the armrest of her wheelchair and she takes a deep measured breath, before making a quiet screaming noise. The Doctor sidles over while the woman continues her breathing exercises.

“Hello, I’m the Doctor, you’re a rational human being, can we be friends?” She asks desperately.

The woman immediately grabs her hand with both of hers.

“Yes we can. Oh God, tell me you’re not a spy, and take a leaflet.”

“I’m not a spy, even though I wouldn’t tell you if I was and you’re doing this on a very visible street corner in front of an actual Dalek.” The Doctor says and takes a leaflet.

The woman rests her head in her hand.

“Critical thinking, it’s like music to my ears. I’m Annie.” She says with a smile.

“Annie, how does a Dalek work a coffee machine?” The Doctor asks, also grinning.

“Because they can make things accessible for Daleks, but I still need to shout to ask for a ramp.” Annie says brightly.

The Doctor looks at the leaflet. There’s a logo of a plunger being broken against a human fist, and the name of an organisation.

Suckerpunch.

  


* * *

  


There’s some nutter on the telly that’s ranting about how the Daleks are actually using humans as slaves.

Harold’s surprised they haven’t cut away yet, but it is good entertainment, he supposes. The only thing the news cares about these days is ratings, even if they have to stir all this rubbish up to get them.

It’s weird how these people’s minds work.

There aren’t any people on the street, so the Daleks _must_ be killing or taking them.

Sure there are less people; some of them leaving cus they hate the idea of a Dalek government that much; young’uns aren’t having as many kids - that’s been going on for years; and there’s less immigration now, which means more jobs and less homeless people.

They just want to make anything good for the country look sinister. It’s like they don’t understand that this is what actual progress looks like - not that you can’t say this and that anymore, but money and jobs and a decent quiet life.

  


* * *

  


The hall is loud and noisy. Some sort of converted religious building. Or maybe they just rent it out. It feels more a bit more Scouts than Suckerpunch.

There are snacks and squash, and she’s got herself some blackcurrant and a custard cream before she realises this might not be for the adults.

Annie rolls up - she said she’d be here.

“Go ahead, they’re free.” Annie says, looking at her paused mid-chew, and the Doctor feels relieved she hasn’t immediately put her foot in her mouth along with the biscuit.

Annie takes a cup and tries to reach the jug, her fingers just grazing the handle. She turns her hand into a fist, squeezing so tightly her knuckles click.

“Just a _little_ bit of thought.” She says in that falsely-sweet tone of hers, and inhales slowly.

The Doctor pushes the jug a bit closer, along with the plate of biscuits.

“So, how’s _your_ day gone?” Annie asks, pouring a drink as they both try to pretend the last five seconds didn’t happen.

“I’ve had sixteen cups of coffee, half of them served to me by a Dalek, half by a person called Roger, who I’m fairly certain thought I was working as an intern given that by then I was ordering four at once.” The Doctor says.

“Six _teen_  ? I’m surprised you can’t see through time at this point.”

“Oh, you have no idea.”

A grey-haired but still rather young looking man walks over to them.

“Are you alright to find your places? I’m going to call for a start in a minute. Made the gangway a bit wider this time.” He says, pointing fingerguns at Annie, who smiles in a way that she’s unsure whether is genuine or patronising. “And sorry, hi, I’m Zak. You’re a new face.” The man says to her.

“Sort of. The Doctor. Just the Doctor.” She says, and Zak enthusiastically shakes her hand.

“Come to join the Resistance?” He asks.

The Doctor’s head fills with sounds and smells from long ago. She wants to tell him that this is hardly new for her, but can’t muster the energy, and simply nods.

“What brought it home to you?” Zak asks far more gently, perhaps seeing something in her eyes. She could tell him about the battles, the camps, the planets burning.

“They shot a cat.” Not even ‘my’ cat. ‘A’ cat. But the man nods. 

“You’d be surprised how often it’s something like that.” He says sadly.

“What’s the plan here then, what do you do?” The Doctor asks.

“Ah well, give me a minute and you’ll see,” Zak says, a clear suggestion that they go and find their seats. “But getting people to notice they're facing a very real threat of slavery, war, and death would be a start, eh?”

  


* * *

  


There are actually people marching in the streets now.

It looks ridiculous, all these people with their homemade cardboard and paint placards, probably never done a day's work in their lives. Certainly don’t live in the real world with everyone else, that much is bloody clear.

God knows what the rest of the world must think.

There’s a counter-protest, and they’re showing that as well. Looks much more neat and organised, not a rabble like the other lot. They look clean and washed, all marching together and shouting as one. Humans and aliens together. 

These lot claim to want everyone treated equally, but when someone does just that, they lose their minds. They want something to rebel against, that’s all.

He’s not been able to go - the back’s still playing up - but Richard’s gone along and keeps sending him messages and pictures.

Apparently the police are coming in hard against the protestors. They’ve turned violent apparently, smashing things and throwing stuff at the counter-protest crowd. He hopes they arrest the lot of them. It’s public indecency is what it is, shaming the whole country like this, trying to make them look backwards, when they’re the ones fighting to silence the majority.

He’s watching it on TV of course, it’s all they’re talking about. It’s faster getting the information from Richard, but he says he’s probably going to head back - the missus doesn’t want him to get into any scraps.

It starts to get nastier as the night goes on, all the basically decent lot go home, leaving only the worst of the thugs and rioters behind.

He knew this would happen. They’re trying to provoke them into attacking.

A person throws something towards the Daleks and it explodes, and suddenly there’s a wave of them pushing through the cop-line. 

It’s blurry, but he watches - swearing at the TV - as someone punches a Dalek’s eyestalk with something wrapped around their fist, and it breaks.

The Dalek shoots.

Well of course it bloody does, it’s self defence.

“It’s self-bloody-defence!” He shouts, and the news cuts away from the footage.

Harold starts clicking through the other channels and checking his computer but no-one’s saying what’s happening, or if they are it gets lost in the sea of other people’s questions.

They go around punching people and behaving like hooligans, what do they expect? 

“It’s self-bloody-defence.” He growls.

  


* * *

  


Annie’s alive.

The Doctor’s seen her going to the corner shop during Moving Hours. Annie shook her head when she tried to approach, and won’t even get close to the coffee place, so she leaves her alone.

They got separated early on, and the Doctor doesn’t know what she saw or what happened to her. 

She was up front, but she’s heard stories about people being crushed in the middle, or kettled by the police from behind where they wouldn’t let them go.

Zak might be dead, she’s not sure. She only saw the first attack on the Dalek through a replay on the TV in the bar, and it’s so blurred no-one can make it out.

There weren’t any bodies.

There were of course - they must have killed at least fifty people - but somehow they were all cleaned up. You can tell the police that people died, but there’s no proof, and all they do is make you file a missing person’s report.

No bodies means no names.

No names means no mourning.

No mourning means no outcry.

Every time the Doctor sees one of the things she just wants to rip it apart with her bare hands and ask it why it doesn’t just kill everyone. She knows what to do when they’re killing everyone.

But she _does_ know why they aren’t killing everyone.

Like any developing species, they’re moving out of their hunter-gatherer phase and into the farming phase.

Why kill everyone when you’ve got useful labourers, a nice supply of emergency soldiers, and could kill them all within a few minutes when they’ve served their purpose.

The woman behind the bar rings a bell.

“Alright, that’s last orders done, I want you out, go on, get.”

It’s ten minutes to six. 

Moving Hours are over.

The Doctor downs her ginger ale and slides off the bar stool. She keeps telling herself she’s going to talk to someone and find a couch to crash on, or go back to the TARDIS. But she doesn’t. If she goes back to the TARDIS she’s not sure she’ll be able to make herself leave it again. 

She daren’t use the psychic paper to fake a permit, so from the hours of six pm to six am every day the Doctor pretends to be dead in a skip, and makes plans, and tries not to let herself come to the conclusion that if the humans are so complicit with all of this, maybe they deserve it.

  


* * *

  


It’s not martial law, only nutjobs are calling it that. It’s just a curfew, and a few extra rules.

Only proper that the Daleks are being afforded a few more rights, what with the attacks. It’s not just been one, there's been a real spike - at least six just today from what he's heard.

They’ve put a load of protestors into prison now.

He’s been fighting about calling them ‘camps’ with someone online.

They’re basically the same thing - camp just tells you that they’re working rather than just lazing about and sponging off the taxpayer as usual, and if he had it his way, he’d just call a spade a spade.

But it doesn’t sound right, and sometimes you’ve got to pander to the people who are too ignorant to understand nuances, so for now it’s easier to call them ‘prisons’.

  


* * *

  


The Doctor is definitely-not-sleeping when there’s an echo of something that isn’t thunder. 

She opens her eyes to see masses of Daleks flying overhead.

If she wanted a distraction, that’s probably it.

Ready or not, here she goes.

  


* * *

  


Harold wakes up and the news makes it sound like he’s been asleep for weeks.

There have been three explosions in prisons around the country. They’re not saying how many have been injured, or who’s behind the attacks. 

Why can't people just leave things alone.

That should be the big story, but it isn’t.

Because the Daleks have stopped.

They’re all stuck in place, not moving, not responding. No-one knows if there’s such thing as a dead Dalek, but they can’t get into their casings to find out, even the little white and blue ones seem to have some kind of protection. 

Apparently some people think they might’ve been cyber hacked or something, and it might be the first computer-based genocide. But there are other people saying that there are electrical signals still coming off them.

That’s good, Harold thinks. That’s like your brain. So long as there’s still electrical stuff going on in there you’re alive, you can still think, get better. It’s only when it’s gone that it’s hopeless. That’s what they told him when he had to let Margaret go.

He looks towards the fridge.

His back’s a bit better today. He could probably manage the garden. Can’t just keep Joseph there forever. 

Got to learn to let go.

  


* * *

  


The Doctor leans against a Dalek control panel, kneeling too close and letting the lights fill her vision.

Wasn’t hard to find the place. There’s usually a reason the TARDIS parks where she does.

Wasn’t actually that hard to disable the Daleks either. They’ve set up a general communication hub, it’s how the central lot had been spying on people through their foot soldiers. There was an in-built ‘kill switch’ too - she didn’t have to make one or anything.

Probably the downside of using Daleks from different paradigms, eventually someone starts getting their own ideas and boom, civil war. So why not have something that can instantly turn the ‘bad ones’ off? Whichever ones that ends up being.

Purists never prosper.

Had to get past two, maybe three Daleks to get in here. They didn’t notice her. Too busy looking at what everyone else was doing. 

It makes her look like a superhero, getting in here all alone, but she wasn’t. That’s the power of people. People coming together, making plans she didn’t know about to help her stop the Daleks with a plan they didn’t know about. Trust. Hope. Fighting even when there feels like there’s no point. This is why she never gives up on humans.

But that’s not to say she doesn’t doubt.

She spins her screwdriver.

Whatever it lands on, that’s the choice she’ll make. Can’t keep them paused forever.

She can kill them. They’ve all got that little self-destruct in them, and she’s seen it work before - wouldn’t even be any casualties besides them. But that little flicker in her mind that might be the only thing separating her from becoming a monster tells her that it is mass murder.

Or she can threaten them. She already _is_ threatening them. She can let them run away. Earth is defended. Words win wars.

Or Option Three.

There is a quad-warper onboard this ship. A full Time War weapon. One that was only invented after the War was already in-progress but she tries not to think about the implications of that.

She goes and activates that, she can make it so that the Daleks essentially were never here. Sort of. The dead will probably still be dead - it can only bend so much, and it will just put the Daleks back to an earlier point. She could be prepared this time though, stop them before they ever get here.

But then nobody learns. The Daleks don’t learn, and the humans don’t learn.

Do they ever though?

No, that’s cynicism, of course they do. That’s how this whole thing happened. They’re both learning. The problem is _what_ are they learning.

What is _she_ learning?

The Doctor spins the sonic. She disagrees with its decision and spins it again. She keeps spinning it.

She thinks she’s learning that there will always be creatures like the Daleks and the people on their side. But there will always be people ready to fight them too. And maybe that’s enough. Maybe that has to be. 

The Doctor reaches down and stops the sonic. She turns it herself and presses the button.

“Hey, I’d like a Venti black septuple shot, for ‘the Doctor’, to go. And when I say ’to go’, I of course mean _you_. Go. Now.”

Because there are no guarantees about what anyone will take from any of this. But she can hope that it’s something worthwhile.

  



End file.
